Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

The provision of affordable housing is a key priority for the Government and is a key element of the "Paths to home ownership" component of the Government's housing policy statement, Delivering Homes, Sustaining Communities. Significant progress has been made in increasing delivery under the range of affordable housing mechanisms currently in place, including the shared ownership scheme, the 1999 affordable housing scheme, Part V of the Planning and Development Acts 2000 to 2006 and the affordable housing initiative. In total, in excess of 3,200 affordable homes were delivered in 2006, an increase of 20% on the previous year.

In the National Development Plan 2007-13, the Government has committed to the delivery of 40,000 affordable homes over the seven year period of the plan. Under the social partnership agreement, Towards 2016, a total of 17,000 of these are to be delivered over the three years 2007 to 2009. My Department is working closely with local authorities and the Affordable Homes Partnership to achieve the significant increases in delivery required to meet these ambitious targets. While the existing delivery mechanisms will be expected to contribute substantially to achieving the required output, the Affordable Homes Partnership, at my Department's request, has undertaken a study to examine how delivery from these mechanisms can be enhanced and to consider possible additional delivery mechanisms. I expect to receive the final report from this study shortly.

In addition, a low-cost site scheme is in place through which sites can be made available, at discounted prices, primarily to approved applicants on local authority housing lists, where it is considered this is an appropriate mechanism for meeting their accommodation requirements. Decisions on the making available of sites under this scheme are a matter for individual local authorities.

Apart from the various schemes designed to deliver affordable housing, certain ancillary supports are also available to support certain applicants to realise their home ownership aspirations. Specifically, the mortgage allowance and rent subsidy schemes help lower income households access shared ownership and affordable housing by providing an annual subvention towards the repayment costs.

See this speech in context