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

The Deputy is correct. The circular issued to local authorities in March, informing them that they could continue to process and approve loans, and that those loans could be drawn down. That came as a result of my commitment to the Oireachtas and the public that any loan approved would be honoured. At the previous meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government the Deputy said some local authorities were not doing that. He referenced his own local authority. Since then, it has been contacted about that. I thank him for bringing that to my attention.

Some interesting things are now happening on the serviced sites fund because of the work we have been able to do in the past year or so. As the Deputy knows, we commenced Part V last year. We have the regulations on the scheme, which we all discussed at the committee, approved in March. The first call was in June last year and it was approved in December. There are ten projects in Dublin and Cork comprising 1,400 homes with €43 million of Exchequer funding. For example, in the Ballymun site a two-bedroom home is €150,000 after the discount that would be held as an equity stake by the local authority, and in Ballyfermot a three-bedroom home is €240,000, which is very welcome.

Significant work is happening on cost rental. We have officially engaged the European Investment bank, EIB, to act as an adviser on how we can achieve cost rental that works at the entry level. The National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, has also done financial modelling on this. I have engaged with one of the housing bodies on this site to ensure the entry-level rents we are discussing are below market levels. The key thing about cost rental is that while it might start off at 15% to 25% below market value, over time that increases to up to 40% below market value.

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