John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Quinlan, Mr. Nicholson and all the team at the Department. The legislation is a long time in gestation. It is very welcome that the area is being prioritised. If we are honest, it is probably an area that has not received a massive amount of attention as the focus has been on social housing. The social housing output has been increasing considerably. It takes a long time to deliver houses. We cannot magic them out of thin air. It takes a lot of foundations being filled and building blocks to put them all in place. It is all very welcome.

On the schemes and who they are targeted at. The legislation focuses on first-time buyers, but there is a cohort of people who lost homes at the start of the economic crisis, before we introduced fantastic schemes such as mortgage-to-rent and the changes to personal insolvency. They have been stuck paying very high rents in recent years with no prospect of getting back on the ladder because they are unable to get a commercial mortgage again. Is there provision in the legislation to enable us to cater for those people and families? There are specific clauses in the case of marital breakdown but my point is more specifically related to those who lost homes at the start of the crisis.

The applications to the cost rental equity loan, CREL, scheme were oversubscribed. What is the situation with the other applications? Are we prioritising the other applications that were not successful? The Minister announced schemes in Dublin and Cork yesterday but schemes were submitted for other urban areas, including Waterford, Limerick and Galway. Can we prioritise those so that they can commence construction before the year end to deliver cost rental units early in 2022 rather than wait until the end of the year to get them going?

There has been considerable public criticism about the equity scheme for the provision of affordable homes in private estates. Will the officials comment on this, specifically on the argument that it will result in cost inflation? What has the Department stitched in to ensure that will not be the case? I understand there are specific provisions to prevent the cost inflation.