Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 22 March 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Social and Affordable Housing: Discussion

Mr. Bob Jordan:

I will take the first two questions on the €70 million fund and cost rental and then hand over to Mr. Baneham. The Deputy is correct on the €70 million fund. It was meant to turn over four times but turned over two and a half times. There are a couple of reasons for that. One is that the properties that were available dried up and it took longer to revolve the properties and sell them on to AHBs.

In terms of learning, there is a big focus on vacancy in Housing for All. We would like to retain at least some of this fund to continue to acquire vacant properties, particularly for the Housing First programme and homelessness. We could probably do something around supporting the Town Centre First policy as well.

On cost rental, I will be interested to hear Mr. O'Leary's answer but one of the issues about extending loans is you start to move from fixed to variable rates. We have had two CREL calls of short duration, focused on turnkeys. We are moving to an open call quite soon. There are opportunities to reduce the entry-level rents in other ways. Part of it is turning from turnkey to construction opportunities.

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