Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The delivery of affordable housing is absolutely key to economic recovery. My colleague in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Councillor Melisa Halpin, just received a reply from the local authority about Cherrywood, which is the biggest residential development going on in the State. The local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, funding which the State extended to the developers was supposed to be reciprocated with 300 affordable homes, but the local authority now thinks that will not happen. There is extremely poor engagement from the developers. It seems that whatever affordable housing the local authority gets will only be €37,000 less than the market price, which is now on average €644,000 in Dún Laoghaire, which means it will not be affordable. There is similar pessimism with regard to the Woodbrook-Shanganagh site, which is also LIHAF-funded. Public money was given to the developers for infrastructure in exchange for affordable housing.

The discount is slightly more at €63,000 but given the average house prices in the area, the affordable housing we were supposed to get will almost certainly be unaffordable for the vast majority of people. That is utterly unacceptable. Indeed, the failure of the Cherrywood developers to engage seriously with the council after getting this money for the infrastructure to deliver affordable housing is a scandal. What is the Taoiseach going to do about this?

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