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

To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett, the Enniskerry Road development has commenced. It is a pilot project that will operate on a cost rental model. It involves two housing bodies, the Housing Finance Agency, the Housing Agency, my Department, and the local authority. If we get it right, a two-bedroom apartment in a great location that is very well serviced will be available for €1,200. That is very important in terms of affordability. For €600 per person, rent in that type of location is very positive. If that works as a pilot, we can expand it throughout the country. That is what the working group is there to do.

On what might be affordable for someone looking to buy, I gave the example of O'Devaney Gardens, which has new two or three-bedroom homes that a starting teacher and nurse living together could afford to buy. These are the types of people we are trying to target with the affordability provisions.

The next question was how we help those who cannot qualify for social housing. We do so with these schemes. We also help them with supply. We know the increase in supply has driven down house prices in parts of Dublin or stabilised them in other parts, but we must throw off the old thinking that supply alone will bridge the affordability gap, particularly in our cities, because it will not and has not in other areas. That is why we have these affordability schemes, the Rebuilding Ireland home loan and the help-to-buy scheme to help people out of the rent trap into new homes.

See this speech in context