Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will begin by responding to a few things the Minister said. The Social Democrats did not support the Affordable Housing Act because there is no transparency whatsoever in it regarding the hundreds of millions of euro that is handed over to developers and how this impacts their profits. We want transparency on that and it should be in the Affordable Housing Act. We are going to propose measures on that shortly and I hope the Government will support them.

In terms of the LDA, how on earth could a Government set up a land development body on a statutory basis without giving it full compulsory purchase order, CPO, powers to buy public land? It is off the charts not to give it the power to buy up land. In the past, local authorities used to use CPO powers very successfully to buy up public land to provide affordable and social housing. What has happened in recent years, and we make no apology for it, is that we have opposed the sale of public land to private developers. All public land that is suitable for housing should be used for social, affordable rental and affordable purchase housing and none of it should be sold off to private developers for housing to be produced at full market rates.

The Minister has criticised us for "only" putting forward or promoting the Ó Cualann model of affordable purchase housing. That is exactly our point. I do not know how that model can be dismissed with the word "only" as not being a viable solution. It is a successful model of developing and delivering affordable purchase homes people can genuinely afford, with new high-quality three-bed homes delivered in Dublin for approximately €260,000. By contrast, under the Government-promoted schemes of subsidies for developers, homes are sold for €400,000, €450,000 and €500,000. The Ó Cualann model is exactly what we should be doing. We should be doing more of it, we should be doing it on public lands and we should not be selling off those lands.

I invite the Minister to look close to here, a few miles up the road, at affordable purchase homes that were delivered in my constituency, in Marino, 100 years ago, when this State had no money. The new State delivered 1,200 affordable purchase homes when it had very little resources. Marino is a successful, thriving community to this day. If the Minister goes a little farther than that, he will come to the community of Donaghmede, built 50 years ago. He will meet the residents there, who will tell him that they bought their affordable purchase homes as part of the newlyweds draw that was run out of the Mansion House at the time and gave newlywed couples the chance and the opportunity to get affordable purchase homes. The residents will tell the Minister how they have lived there for the past 50 years, raised their families, got involved in the local community and got involved in the GAA club and how that was successful for them. We do not have to look far back in history. If the Minister goes up farther to Dun Emer in Lusk, he will be able to see affordable purchase homes delivered now, but only 323 last year, a drop in the ocean. What did the Minister promise the electorate during the last election campaign as regards affordable homes? He promised 10,000 affordable homes every year. He has delivered, in three years in government, 323 when he promised there would be 30,000 affordable homes by this point.

Why is there so little delivery? Why does the Minister dismiss our motion, which calls for an expansion of the successful Ó Cualann model? It has been shown that by putting more money back into people's pockets in the form of disposable income, this model boosts the local economy and local jobs. It means housing within reach. It means that people can get involved in their local communities. It gives them that stability and that security. Why dismiss that as not being a solution? Why is the Government not doing this at the scale it promised? There is nothing "only" about the Ó Cualann model of affordable purchase housing. Instead of putting hundreds of millions in public money through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund into expensive build-to-rent, rental-only developments, which is what this Government and this State are doing now, let us put those resources into affordable purchase housing as well as affordable rental and social housing to give people secure tenancies, somewhere secure to live and somewhere to build a home and a life from.

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