Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

There are plans to build 25,000 new homes in the Cork docklands over the next 20 years. The question is whether they will be genuinely affordable. Will young people and people on low and even average incomes be locked out of the market? I saw an interesting snippet on the RTÉ news recently. A company in Castleisland, County Kerry, built 70 houses. As the company had difficulty retaining a workforce in the area, it sold 20 of these houses to its workers at cost price. This cost of €150,000 was reckoned to be more than €30,000 below the market valuation for such a house. That is a little indication of what can be done when the profiteering is cut out of the situation.

There is a lot of public land down in the docklands, including lands at the old Ford plant, at Kent Station which is counted as part of the project, at Tivoli Docks and at Camp Field. I could name many more. Imagine what could be done if we built public housing on public land, including social housing, council housing and cost-price housing that is genuinely affordable for young people and people on low and middle incomes. Instead, the Land Development Agency is talking about a 60:30:10 mix. Some 60% is to be sold at private market rates, which will inevitably mean that significant numbers of people will be locked out of the market. I ask for the Taoiseach's comments on that and for his position on the idea that public housing should be developed on this public land instead.

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