Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We need to be clear when we talk about the purpose of the fund. LIHAF exists to facilitate investment by the local authorities of taxpayers' money to ensure pieces of land can be opened up for the development of housing. We need to bring that supply of housing online. We also have to cater for different price points. It goes back to a point that Deputy Boyd Barrett alluded to earlier in that if we can get people into homes they can afford to buy - whatever affordability means to them as an individual in terms of what they earn and the percentage of their income they are happy to put towards accommodation - and if it takes pressures of things like the rental market and off families who are struggling to find places to live at affordable rent, it has a knock-on effect throughout the system.

Affordability will depend on a number of different factors that input into the cost of construction, one of which is land. In certain parts of the city and the country, the land costs will be much higher and that will have an impact on the type of affordability that can be leveraged by the State in relation to that particular site. We have to look at this on a case-by-case basis in terms of the contracts local authorities are now finalising. Each of the different developments that are accessing LIHAF funding will be finalised towards the end of this month and they will then come to the Department to see what has been agreed.

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