Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett. As a Government, we do fund the ESRI, which does outstanding work. It is important that we have bodies such as the ESRI providing an independent analysis of what the Government is doing about the challenges we face as a country, and we take the output from the ESRI very seriously. The report's key conclusion is that interventions, including increased supply, increased direct provision of social housing, and measures that develop alternative non-market rental cohorts, such as cost rental, will be critical to lowering housing costs for future cohorts. I make the case that we as a Government are pursuing aggressively all of those avenues through the Housing For All plan. We are the Government that is prioritising home ownership. We are introducing new affordable housing initiatives. We will have the launch of the new shared equity first home scheme imminently by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. This will provide an opportunity for a lot of people to bridge the gap between what they can currently afford to borrow under market prudential rules and the amount they must pay for a home at this time. It seems to be only the Deputies on this side of the House who see this as an issue and want to help individuals and couples in that situation. In addition, the Land Development Agency, LDA, through its Project Tosaigh is identifying opportunities for development of social housing, cost rental housing, and affordable housing. They are moving on site across the country across a range of different schemes.

We also recognise the importance of the fresh start principle, that there are many people who have gone through a divorce or legal separation or who have perhaps lost their home because of bankruptcy or an insolvency procedure. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has adopted this principle so that all of the affordable housing initiatives the Government is rolling out, and the local authority loan scheme that has been approved, are to be made available to people who need that second chance to purchase a home as well.

We are in the middle of the largest public housing programme in the history of the State. This is what the Government is doing. We have committed €4 billion of capital every single year for the next number of years to make sure that we increase the supply of all types of homes, but especially public housing and social housing, whether it is delivered by local authorities or by approved housing bodies. For the first time ever, cost rental housing is now coming on stream in Ireland. For the first time ever, affordable housing is now directly enshrined in stand-alone legislation, which only the Government parties in this House supported. We want to get away from the short-term rental supports. I agree with the Deputy on that point. When I look at what we are paying in housing assistance payments, HAP, which is a €585 million in the budget this year, with the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, costing €133 million and rent supplement costing €80 million, the best way to get away from that is to build homes for our people and that is what this Government is focused on doing.

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