Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The focus has to be on bringing down prices, both to rent and to buy. I have made a number of suggestions to the Minister and his predecessor, including amending the capital advance loan facility, and allowing approved housing bodies to purchase turnkey developments, many of which would be available to purchase now because of the slowdown in Covid-19 private sector supply, to deliver them as affordable homes. It would be much cheaper than those purchased through help-to-buy or shared equity loans. Likewise, increased capital investment is needed by local authorities to build genuinely affordable homes and sell or rent them at cost. We should also stop using public land to sell unaffordable private sector homes. The Oscar Traynor Road site is currently before Dublin City Council and 50% of the homes to be sold are at unaffordable open market prices. That is not the best strategic use of the land in question. Why not fund the local authority and have this site as a fully public scheme, with one third social rental, one third affordable rental and one third genuinely affordable purchase? This is the type of measure that will tackle the crisis.

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