Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am after listening to this debate for the past hour and a half and, like many fair-minded people, I try to digest it and listen to the facts and the counter-arguments being made. However, there is a lie being perpetuated here by many people on the Opposition benches tonight and in recent months. The lie is that these caps on affordable houses are actual prices. In my case, the cap will be €450,000 in Cork city and €400,000 the county. I have listened to Opposition Members over recent months perpetuate this lie. One affordable housing scheme has been launched in Cork city because Cork City Council took the initiative to get ahead of the legislation and to launch its own scheme. A two-bed house is €175,000 and a three-bed house is €215,000. This myth and this lie that has been perpetuated by people in the Opposition needs to be called out for what it is. When I turn on my local radio station, I hear that lie regarding the affordable housing plan being given every day.

As I said at the outset, I am a fair-minded person. Am I saying that everything in the contents of this report is perfect? No - far from it. I myself have issues with a number of items in it. At the same time, however, I need to promote some of the positives from it. Fianna Fáil agreed as an Opposition party that we would abolish the SHD process. While that is taking a bit longer than we would like, it is being done. It is being delivered in this plan and SHDs are being phased out. We also gave a commitment that we would treble spending moving from the Rebuilding Ireland programme to this current plan, and we have done that. That is costed and in the document. We have also provided for a new cost-rental model and it might not be for everybody. It is certainly not for me. As a person with a young family, I want to set down my roots. I want to stay in my locality and buy my own home. However, a cost-rental model is now being launched. Many of those homes have been announced in Dublin in recent months and they will come to Cork as well shortly, with an announcement due in my town of Glanmire.

There are challenges, which a number of speakers referred to, including in regard to Irish Water and infrastructure. As Deputy Shanahan said, the inflationary cost of building homes is probably the main issue at this time. This is a plan for the delivery of affordable housing. The great difficulty I have with it, and this is a question I have put to the Minister and both Ministers of State in the Department, concerns what implications those exorbitant costs might have for the deliverability of the plan in respect of the number of social and affordable units provided. There are several actions we can take to rectify that problem. We can consider changes to the standards and regulations, which are adding to the costs of building in other sectors. For example, €56,000 for a water pump is a charge many people will be expected to face in retrofitting their homes in the coming years. It would be just as easy to retrofit an oil heating system for €5,000, which is a fraction of the cost, and source the energy needed from biofuels and other sustainable energy sources.

As I said at the outset, we need to dispel the myth that this plan is anti-tenant and anti-homeowner; it is far from it. In fact, it is the first constructive attempt at addressing the housing problem in the past decade. That needs to be acknowledged.

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