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

I am sharing time with Deputy Gould. A year ago, during the general election campaign, the Fianna Fáil election manifesto promised the delivery of 50,000 affordable homes over the lifetime of the incoming Government. The Minister said on the election stump said that those homes would be available at prices of €250,000 or less for first-time buyers and others yet when we saw the final text of the programme for Government gone was that crucial commitment. Despite that, the Minister spent the first two weeks following his appointment promising to deliver affordable homes at prices between €160,000 and €250,000. Astonishingly, just like the disappearance of affordable homes from the programme for Government so, too, had that commitment disappeared from the budget. There was no increase in the serviced sites fund on the moneys already committed by Fine Gael, despite that it is the crucial mechanism for delivering affordable homes through local authorities. A measly €35 million is provided for 400 affordable cost-rental homes this year which, while welcome, are nowhere close to the thousands of affordable cost rental homes recommended to Government by the Housing Agency, ESRI, and the National Economic and Social Council, NESC.

What we did get is a return of Fianna Fáil and the bad old days of the Celtic tiger in the form of an increase to the help-to-buy scheme. This has not only been criticised by the Opposition. NESC and the ESRI have said it will push up demand at a time of limited supply and, in turn, push up prices. Worse than that, we had the introduction of a toxic shared equity loan scheme. Again, it is not just the Opposition who are critical of this scheme. The most senior official in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, in emails to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, said that this will increase house prices and, at least, it will lock in the unsustainable level of house prices currently if not push them up further. What is really interesting is that this scheme was not in the Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael manifestos. This scheme was written and designed by two property industry lobby groups at the start of 2020, which I know because they also met all of the housing spokespeople at that time, me included. It is based on a controversial and well-criticised scheme in the United Kingdom. It will also lock in and push up unsustainably high prices while loading working families with ever greater levels of debt. Not satisfied with this, the Minister seems intent on bringing the banks into the shared equity loan scheme. He is currently in negotiations through the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland to double the €75 million of State money with €75 million of banking money. I understand there is a dispute between Government and federation regarding interest payments. No matter the level of interest, all this will do is saddle hard-working people with ever greater and, at the outset, unquantifiable levels of debt and all the while the banks will profit. This is no way to address our housing crisis.

All the while, because of the failures of Fine Gael and, now, Fianna Fáil housing policy, house prices and rents continue to spiral out of control. The report of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, published this week makes for grim reading for those wanting to rent or buy at affordable prices. The cheapest suburban apartment currently under construction is €359,000. The cheapest city centre apartment in Dublin is €439,000. Who can buy these apartments? Not ordinary working people or even working people on good incomes. More than 70% of these properties are being built by build-to-rent developers. If that is not bad enough, the rents are sky high, ranging from €1,850 per month, which is the cheapest in the suburbs, to €2,600 per month in the city centre. Does anybody think hard-working, single people, let alone couples, can afford those types of rents and still have a decent standard of living?

The SCSI report shows that Fine Gael's housing policy has failed. This is the consequence of a decade of Fine Gael politicians and Ministers not taking housing affordability seriously. It has failed to deliver affordable homes to working people. In 2018, the then Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, introduced the serviced sites fund and from the Opposition benches, the current Minister claimed credit for that €300 million. The then Government promised to deliver 6,200 affordable homes by 2021. Not one of those houses has been delivered and only 150 are currently in construction and we do not know when they will be ready or what the final price will be. The Fianna Fáil response within six months in government is to throw even more fuel on the flames of house purchase and rent inflation and to continue to underinvest in genuine affordable homes to rent or buy. It is not increasing the targets for social housing as outlined by Fine Gael in the national development plan or investing in local authority-led affordable homes to rent or buy.

As we all know, there is an alternative. Not only the Opposition but an increasing range of voices in industry, the NGO sector and the academy are saying that in light of negative interest rates for Government borrowing now is the time to invest directly in local authority and AHB-led affordable homes, which working people can buy without hidden equity charges or spiralling costs to buy or rent. The scale of capital investment that would be required would be double what was agreed in the budget a few short months ago. We need in the region of €3 billion to deliver at least 20,000 social and affordable homes each year. The Minister when campaigning during the general election promised that Fianna Fáil would deliver 50,000 social homes and 50,000 affordable homes. Now that he is in office, when Sinn Féin proposes that, he says it is not achievable, there are no planning permissions and no delivery mechanism. If he thinks that now, why during the election did he promise the very same targets being proposed now by Sinn Féin? Perhaps as Pat Rabbitte famously said, "That's just the kind of thing you do to win elections."

In the remaining three minutes available to me before I hand over to my colleague Deputy Gould, I would like to put some simple questions to the Minister. He is developing a reputation for bluff and bluster. Perhaps in this short exchange, he will give some direct and simple answers to direct and simple questions. First, how many affordable homes to rent and buy will be delivered by Government this year? I am seeking only a number, not a speech.

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