Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My concern is twofold. With respect to the affordable housing fund purchases, in my own constituency homes were effectively completed midway through the year but because of disputes over legal contracts, they have not yet been purchased. We expect them to be purchased by February. That means those homes were not ready for occupation. In the Minister’s constituency, he launched affordable purchase homes in December. However, as at the start of January, those homes were not actually complete. Fingal County Council confirmed to me that they were practically complete but that utilities had not yet been connected and that was in the process of being resolved this month. In fact, the contracts have yet to be signed and will not be completed and ready for people to move in until February.

Likewise, the Minister has not proved the concept of cost rental. The LDA homes that were advertised under Project Tosaigh are coming in at rent of about €1,500. There are still no cost-rental units in the urban core where we need them. I suspect even when we see them in the urban core of Dublin that we will be looking at rents of between €1,600 and €1,900. Cost rental has to be affordable and €1,500 for a two-bedroom or three-bedroom unit outside Delgany is not an affordable rent. Therefore, as the Minister knows from his engagement with the AHBs, that scheme is in a bit of a crisis. Until we really grasp the issue of affordable cost rental, that scheme is going to run into huge problems not just in terms of the delivery last year but in the update of delivery this year and the year after.

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