Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is real confusion here. Housing units at €320,000, €310,000 or €300,000 are not affordable either in or outside of Dublin. I say that because it is only possible to borrow 3.5 times gross household income under the Central Bank's mortgage lending rules. The people who need affordable housing are on incomes of between €45,000 and €75,000. The band of properties for those people are valued at between €170,000 and €288,000. The Minister seems to be suggesting there may be - possibly outside Dublin, possibly through LIHAF, possibly through the new housing finance initiative - some properties at the very top end of that; although he cannot confirm that yet. There has to be a spread of properties in the range between €170,000 and €288,000 next year, the following year and the year after that. I am not hearing that, either in what the Minister has said today or what he said previously.

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