Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Reference was made to affordable housing. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Murphy, will be making an announcement on a new scheme and a revised scheme in the next days or weeks. That will come as welcome news to many people who do not qualify for social housing but who are unable to secure a mortgage because their income is higher than the social housing limit but lower than what is realistically required to get a mortgage. Details of the scheme will be announced shortly.

Deputies are right to raise the whole issue of affordable housing. When it comes to discourse in the House and public discourse the focus tends to be on homelessness and social housing because those issues are so important. However, we should not forget that the vast majority of people in the country provide their own housing and most people want to buy and own their own houses. We need to ensure that is possible for the vast majority of people. That requires measures such as the affordable housing scheme and ensuring that it is affordable to build houses. That is why new regulations are coming to reduce the cost of building apartment blocks. This will allow us to build more of them in our cities and towns and give people the opportunity to buy apartments and to get on the housing ladder again. Programmes like the local infrastructure housing activation fund use public money to provide services and access sites on which we can build houses.

It is important for parties to be aware that when it comes to NAMA we have an agreement and an understanding with the European Union on the role of NAMA. The understanding covers what is not and what is required to keep it off-balance-sheet. If Deputies were not aware, they should now be aware that any proposals to change the role or remit of NAMA, or to transform NAMA, following discussions with the European Commission could run into significant difficulties. Changing the remit of NAMA may force the agency to go on-balance-sheet or we could run into issues around state aid. If NAMA was competing with the private construction sector in the private rental market and the private housing construction market, that could constitute state aid. I am keen to ensure everyone is aware of that if they are developing policies for the future.

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