Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would be delighted to. The budget contains are measures on affordability ranging up to €468 million in value. It is significant. It is in the housing for all section of the programme for Government. Affordability and associated measures are at the centre of it. The serviced sites fund is part of it. I am working on measures that I believe can improve the delivery on that.

As I mentioned already, we will bring forward the national affordable rental scheme which has been outstanding for some time. It is a new mode of delivering housing and a new tenure of housing for many people who are above the social housing limits. I believe in home ownership, as I have said before. My party does and the Deputy's party does. This Government does and, according to most surveys, the vast majority of people who are asked their preferred tenure of housing opt for home ownership at an affordable rate. That is why in the coming weeks of this session I will bring forward an affordable housing Bill to the Dáil. We will do extensive work with the Attorney General and others. We have not had a national affordable housing scheme in many years. It has been complex but I am happy, given the work and progress that has been made, that we will have an affordable purchase scheme on top of our affordable rental scheme and the delivery of affordable homes through serviced sites and other mechanisms, for example through the Land Development Agency. Work is advancing on a significant Bill relating to the agency which will come to this committee.

In the interim, I remind Deputy Higgins that the Government made a decision to retain the help-to-buy grant at the increased level of €30,000, which has helped nearly 20,000 homeowners to get onto the housing ladder. I know some people completely disagree, as is their right, with helping first-time buyers to get their deposits together but this mechanism has helped a lot of families to own a home. I want to see a more sustainable model. That is why I look forward to working with the Deputy and her colleagues on delivering a real and robust affordable housing scheme. Central to our programme for Government is the provision of high-quality affordable housing that our citizens can purchase or rent. That needs to happen, particularly for the Deputy's generation. Home ownership has slipped away from almost an entire generation of people. The average age of a person buying his or her first home is now 35 or 36. I want to see that trend reversed and that is why home ownership is an absolute priority for this Government and for me as Minister. I hope that answers the Deputy's question and I look forward to working with her on this matter.