Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the witnesses for their contributions, which have been very helpful. I wish to make a couple of comments and then pose two specific questions. There is a lot of talk about ambition and targets, particularly from committee members, which is good, but let us all just remind ourselves that targets will only be set in accordance with the funding provided. Unless the Government invests more than €50 million in the serviced sites fund and €35 million in the CREL scheme, we will not see the local authorities or AHBs expand their ambition. We need to be realistic about this. If we want ambition, it will have to be matched by funding. Otherwise, the stuff does not get built.

I support Deputy McAuliffe's call for mixed income AHB developments. Of course, the easiest way to do this is to allow the capital advance leasing facility, CALF, to be used by AHBs for mixed social and affordable rental schemes. They have been calling for that for years and neither the previous Minister nor the current one has agreed to it. If the Deputy has any influence with his party colleague and he wants to make sure this is delivered, he should use it. Let us not have two separate funds. Let us allow the AHBs to have one fund to deliver exactly the kinds of schemes Deputy McAuliffe is rightly calling for.

On the target setting, Mr. Curran is being very generous to the Department. The methodology for the housing needs demand assessment has not actually been produced by the Department yet. Local authorities are drawing up their development plans without this methodology. I know from my own local authority, South Dublin, that the development plan will be finished before that methodology is complete and issued. Again, if we want our local authorities to set targets, the Department should give them the methodology for these exercises before they complete their development plans. If anybody has any influence on that, it would be very helpful.

I want to go back to price because ultimately, all of this comes down to what price people are paying. Let us take the example of a two-bedroom unit renting at €1,200 and a family over the threshold for social housing in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown local authority area. A family with a gross household income of €38,000 or €39,000 paying €1,200 in rent will be left with a weekly income of €490. Trying to raise two children, for example, on a weekly income of €490 is simply not acceptable so we have to find ways of bringing rents down for those people or raising the social housing threshold. What can be done to bring rents down further?

In terms of house prices, the guide price we are hearing is about €250,000 and that is before the shared equity element of the serviced sites fund is taken into account; it is after that discount. The average Rebuilding Ireland home loan in Dublin is €200,000, so again, what we can do to bring those costs down in order that the above-average income worker can get the finance to purchase a home, even with the serviced sites equity element built in, at a price that is affordable?