Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I too recognise and welcome our distinguished visitors to the House.

The Government yesterday repackaged and rebranded three announcements on housing. Rents are now at an all-time high in Dublin, 14% above the previous 2007 peak. The pilot affordable rental scheme will be of little benefit to those facing record rents and new leases. The Government plans to reduce costs, build smaller apartments, reintroduce bedsits and have people use shared kitchens and other facilities. We still do not know how many new homes were built last year but it is believed that fewer than 10,000 new homes were completed in that period although between 25,000 and 35,000 were needed. The private market has failed to deliver.

The affordable purchase scheme is light on specifics but the hope is that it will deliver between 3,000 and 10,000 homes. It would provide developers with access to State-owned property and the State would fund the servicing of State-owned lands.

The newly rebranded council loan scheme has also been announced. The amount that people can borrow under the scheme has been reduced from 97% to 90% of the cost of a house. Those who might apply, many of whom have already visited my constituency office, are already paying record rents and will now have to face additional costs in terms of a deposit. For example, a person would have to save a deposit of €20,000 to purchase a €200,000 house. The help-to-buy scheme may provide some assistance in that regard and fixing interest rates would be of benefit over the lifetime of a loan but the numbers benefitting will be small.

The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, yesterday said there is no need for a new agency with money, power, resources and control of land to build and deliver affordable housing. The State intends to change building regulations to make apartments more profitable, to provide the land for affordable housing, to pay for infrastructure through the housing activation fund, to finance developers - as announced at the time of the budget - through Home Building Finance Ireland, to help people to put together a deposit through the help-to-buy scheme and now intends to finance loans to home buyers through the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme. In that case, why do we not establish a new housing agency to deliver affordable housing and use the 700 publicly-owned sites we have and the monetary resources the Government has allocated - more could be available through NAMA - to work with the local authorities and voluntary housing agencies to build and deliver these houses?

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