Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Home ownership has become a pipe dream for many my age. That is the sad reality. Young people feel hopeless and locked out of the housing market. This is fundamentally wrong and must change. That is why I am so glad this Government is committed to changing that and has backed up that commitment with historic investment. We want to make renting and home ownership accessible, affordable and achievable for everyone. In the past year we have taken five major steps towards that. We extended the help-to-buy scheme for first-time buyers and we brought in the Land Development Agency to kick start the delivery of homes on public land. We will extend the Part V obligations to include 10% affordable housing as well as 10% social and shortly we will pass the Affordable Housing Bill to give people the opportunity to own their own home or to avail of secure, affordable long-term leases. I am not sure if Sinn Féin has supported even one of those milestone measures. Instead it is focused on delay tactics, on fairytale economics and on impractical ideology that results not in homes but in Sinn Féin councillors voting against homes on public land, over 5,000 homes in Dublin City Council alone in less than two years.

We all agree that international investment funds should not be competing with first-time buyers for three and four-bed family homes but we should not be naive either about where foreign investment is needed. We need to produce in excess of 35,000 homes a year over the next ten years at a cost of €10 billion a year. We can invest €3 billion or €4 billion in State funding every year but where will we find the €6 billion short fall without external investment? The Sinn Féin motion seems built on the idea that we should borrow €6 billion every year for ten years but with the balance sheet of about €266 billion, that is just not practical. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is bringing forward legislation to address the issue of investment funds competing with first-time buyers. Will Sinn Féin support that or will it stick with its tried and tested policy of delay and oppose? Will it back the Affordable Housing Bill or will it vote against it on the pretence that one strand of the Bill will not work, despite it supporting that strand in the North and overseeing its operation? There it calls it a success, here it brands it a fantasy. The truth is the policy of opposition for the sake of opposition will deliver nothing for anybody. Our aim is to solve the housing crisis and get people into homes. It is something I am committed to and I believe the Government is deeply committed to.

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