Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 23 September 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Affordable Housing: Discussion
2:00 am
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
That is the second issue I want to move onto. I again apologise for being a little rude. It is only because the time is tight. What we are seeing with affordable purchase and cost rental is that increasing numbers of the people at whom they are targeted cannot afford them because their incomes are simply too low to meet the price. Is the Department tracking the number of people who are excluded from cost rental on application solely because they do not meet the affordability test? Is it tracking the number of people at the lower edge of income eligibility for affordable purchase who are excluded from buying because of the price? Is it actually checking how affordable these homes are for all of the deciles who are meant to be getting them? The data I am seeing indicates that only those people at the top of the income cohort can actually afford these properties and everyone else is being excluded. As Deputy McGrath rightly says, they are not eligible for social housing and increasingly they cannot afford affordable purchase or cost rental and are excluded. Is that something the Department is examining, tracking and concerned about?
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