Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan for bringing forward this Bill.

Fingal County Council plans to lease 159 units in Hansfield SDZ, strategic development zone, under the Part V lease scheme which will cost between €60 million and €74 million. We do not know the real figure because it is shrouded in secrecy and it is impossible to get it revealed. The council is preparing to sign a contract with a private developer for these 159 units at a cost of over €384,000 for a one-bedroom unit over 25 years and €438,000 for a two-bedroom unit. Fingal County Council only recently announced its own affordable housing scheme, however, where a one-bed unit costs only €166,000.

It seems Fingal County Council is willing to sign this deal that will see a leased unit cost 2.5 times that of an affordable housing unit. This is an incredible waste of money. It is essential that an immediate stop is put to any attempt to sign this deal. It is a bad deal for taxpayers and for tenants.

It is astonishing the council can support spending of upwards of €74 million for this deal yet we have Churchfields in Mulhuddart, a development that was announced in 2017, on which only a handful of houses have been built so far. On Part V, and this is really important:

As units leased may revert to the developer at the end of the lease period, and hence be removed from the local authority’s social housing stock, the aims of Part V, and of the Government’s social housing policy, will be better achieved by the acquisition of houses, rather than leasing. Accordingly it is recommended that where capital funding is available, including through AHBs, the local authority should seek the acquisition of houses on the development site.

I ask the Government to support the motion to end this absolute waste of money and call on the Minister to act in his own constituency by calling the chief executive of Fingal County Council and to end this absolute waste of money.

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