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

I thank Deputy Higgins. I will answer her question on the tenant in situscheme first. The cost-rental backstop is in place. We have already had inquiries on that. It is being managed through the Housing Agency. I encourage people whose incomes are above the social housing limits and who cannot afford to buy the home even though the landlord is willing to sell to go to the local authority. The Housing Agency is managing that at the moment and the first inquiries in that space have already been made.

With regard to the first home scheme and extending it to assist people who are in a position to buy the home they have been renting, that measure has been in place since 1 April. We got approval from First Home Scheme Ireland DAC to do that. Again, we have had the first inquiries about that scheme. This is the first time we have moved into the second-hand market but we are doing so in a targeted way. We want the first home scheme to focus on increasing supply. We have actually seen that across the country already.

We have had first-home scheme approvals and eligibility certificates issued in 24 of the 26 counties.

A very important question was asked about cost rental. The cost-rental viability measure that was agreed today is a very important one to deliver more cost-rental units, at scale, through the LDA. This is what I was endeavouring to answer earlier on. That will take the form of a subvention, equity or both. However, when one is spending significant money, it takes some time to design the detail of a scheme such as this. The approval is there. The second round of Project Tosaigh, which is approximately 4,600 units that we have already gone through and we know where they are, would be a very good mechanism to get them up and running. We have advanced work on cost-rental design because we wanted to get it in place and prove concept and that has been done. More than 1,000 tenancies have been approved. However, since that has come in, we have seen the cost of financing increasing, which has put pressure on the development cost within cost rental. Before the summer, we will have changes to the cost-rental equity loan, which we will be working through. That has been advanced with stakeholders and the AHBs as well, because there is a good pipeline and we wish to scale this up.