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

I wholly reject the Deputy's analysis. I will answer his question first and then look to what the alternatives are. This year, we will deliver more than 6,000 affordable homes through our delivery schemes. Last year, more than 4,000 were delivered. Looking at the pipeline of affordable housing through local authorities alone, we have approved more than 5,000 for affordable purchase. That does not include cost rental through the LDA, which is now delivering at scale. Schemes the LDA is building itself can now be seen.

I will address the matter of the overall cost because I want to get under the bonnet of the Deputy's alternative, which he has not published. We use the affordable housing fund to subvent and take an equity stake in local authority affordable purchase. What I have seen in his "alternative", and I use that word advisedly, is that he is proposing to just provide a grant. His leader has stepped back from the €300,000 home and does not mention it any more, which is fine. She has now said it will be through an affordable housing scheme. We are focused on affordable housing delivery. We can have the political back and forth and when the Deputy's party publishes his alternative I will be happy to go through it. However, we are more than four years into this Government and the Deputy has not said what it will be, bar the fact that there will be a leasehold arrangement so an individual would buy a home that he or she does not own the ground on. The Deputy's proposal is that arbitrary salary caps would be brought in. I understand that salary cap means a couple earning €80,000 or more will not be able to access affordable housing. The Sinn Féin scheme will also restrict who they can sell the house to. It would be sold back to some State body that will hold the home and sell it on.