Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

To follow on from Deputy Gould's question and my own earlier question, I am worried about the levels of rent in cost rental. The statement Mr. O’Rourke made about 75% being what the LDA will deliver as cost rental concerns me, as I said. This is land that, if it was developed under the old model, would be 100% income-based rent, based on the differential rental scheme. This is not for the LDA and it is Government policy, but there is a substitution effect where land that used to be available to everybody on a differential rent basis will now be more expensive and it will be cost rental. However, what will that cost rental rent look like? Mr. O’Rourke is saying that the Government will decide that and the LDA will do its best to make it as affordable as possible, and how cheap it can make it will depend on Government support and so on. I am not clear what that adds up to.

To be concrete about it, can Mr. O’Rourke at this stage tell us what the cost-rental rents will be in Shanganagh, the first site on the LDA’s list and the one that is closest to starting? It is still not clear to me precisely when it is going to start. He might be able to tell us precisely when it is going to start and precisely why there are still delays on the original commencement which, as I understood it, was supposed to begin in 2021. Can he tell us, even at this stage, what the rents will be for cost rental in Shanganagh? Can he tell us anything about what the prices under affordable purchase will be in Shanganagh? As he will be aware, our concern is that, given they are linked to local market conditions and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown now has the highest house prices in the entire country at €590,000, even a 30% or 40% reduction on that would still be completely unaffordable for people. Is there anything he can tell us to give us comfort that cost rental is not going to be a very considerable mark-up on what we would have got if we had just built social housing there, and that the affordable housing will actually be affordable?