Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to support many families in this State who are currently locked out of the housing market. We must be realistic about the complex nature of what is required in terms of the policy to solve the housing crisis in this country. The scheme being proposed is proportionate and time bound. The aim is to try to make a key intervention to ensure we reframe the supply of housing for starter homes. We have seen the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme. The ESRI fully backed this as a targeted intervention. We have seen the help-to-buy scheme, which has assisted 22,000 families in the State to get on the housing ladder. People should be aware that those 22,000 families would not have got assistance on the basis of the policies of Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin policy would deny them the key supports and the chance to own their own homes.

This Bill is about trying to achieve a balance through various supply mechanisms, including increasing the Part V mechanism by 20% for affordable and social homes. Another mechanism is establishing the Land Development Agency, which I believe will be a game changer in the market in terms of increase in supply of public and affordable homes. Other measures are crucial, like our affordable scheme led by our local authorities. All these different schemes come together as a suite of measures. It is curious to hear that this scheme will have a negative impact in the marketplace when we see that it amounts to less than 0.68% of the €11 billion mortgage market in the country. It will assist people who are marginally over the threshold to gain their own home through either the social housing list or the rules that currently exist. It will give those families a chance to get home ownership. Many are paying 35% more in rental income than they would pay servicing a mortgage. It will assist in unlocking the 80,000 planning permission applications in the State which we want to help increase supply.

In the past five years we have increased supply threefold in this country. We have come from a low base after the economic crash and built up our construction sector again. That is what this is about. It is not about the populist rhetoric of singly stopping housing as we have seen with the Oscar Traynor scheme in Dublin. The citizens of the capital city were denied a chance of 853 homes that would have been a mixture of affordable and social homes. It is easy to let ideology trump this debate. What people want is a supply of affordable high-quality homes to service the citizens in our State. I believe the Government will ensure that continues to happen and that supply will continue to be ramped up. We have seen supply increase. One of the key measures the Government is focusing on is the increase of supply.

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