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

It is important that we do not mislead the public on LIHAF. The objective of LIHAF was to unblock key pieces of land for housing delivery. The majority of the projects, if not all, were approved only in quarters 3 and 4 of last year. The intention is for the infrastructure to be delivered between now and 2019 and for 20,000 houses to be delivered between now and 2021. At certain sites, however, the houses will be delivered in tandem with the infrastructure. We are already seeing progress on some key sites in Dublin where there will be housing delivery.

When we talk about what will be delivered under the 30 projects and about the target of 20,000 homes by 2021, we should note that 5,600 homes, or over 28%, will be social or affordable housing. That means 3,274 social homes and 2,350 affordable homes. Five thousand six hundred, or 28%, will have a LIHAF-related cost reduction, which was part of the scheme when it was originally set up. Eight thousand eight hundred homes, or 44%, will be sold at normal market rates. Therefore, 70% of the projects approved to date are likely to have housing available at €320,000 or less, subject to market inflation. Bearing in mind the number of first-time buyers and the homes that were bought last year, the figure of €320,000 is important. In the greater Dublin area, Cork and Galway, 69% of houses bought by first-time buyers in 2017 were priced lower than €320,000. Outside those areas, the figure was lower than €250,000. While LIHAF was not specifically an affordability measure in the first instance, it will deliver affordable homes. More important, it will deliver affordable purchase scheme homes. This scheme is the new affordability provision I announced at the beginning of this year.

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