Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for acknowledging that there has been an increase in house completions. The Central Statistics Office indicated today that 32,695 houses were completed in 2023. That is a 10% increase on 2022, which saw a 45% increase on 2021. The momentum on house building is in the right direction. Without question, Covid held us back. Over 100,000 houses will have been built since this Government came to office and we are making significant progress, but we need to do more. What was significant in the CSO’s figures this morning was the increase in the number of apartments completed in 2023, namely, 11,642, which was up 28%. The importance of this is that we were grappling with the viability question in respect of apartments. The waiving of development levies and other measures that we took last year are having an impact on the increase.

The Deputy has raised a fair issue. The number of first-time buyers is way up. The help-to-buy and first home schemes are helping many people who are buying at different price ranges. People have also shown huge interest in the vacant housing grants, which amount to €50,000 and €70,000, respectively. These could cover some of the people in the cohort that the Deputy referenced. Each week, approximately 500 first-time buyers are buying their first homes and approximately 29,000 first-time buyer mortgages were approved in the first 11 months of 2023. There is increased momentum and we are going in the right direction in terms of housing supply, but we need to do more and progressively increase the numbers. This year, I hope that we can go higher than the figure of nearly 33,000.

We increased the income threshold for local authority housing and social housing by €5,000 last year, but the Deputy has pointed out the gap between that and some of the affordable housing schemes. I do not know whether the Deputy is factoring in the help-to-buy scheme or the first home scheme. We also have the cost-rental scheme, which have proven effective. It is a new model that was really only introduced in the past two years, but it is gaining traction all the time. It results in rents of approximately 25% below the market rate. We will continue to innovate to see whether we can enable as many people as possible who want to buy their own homes to do so at an affordable price and within their income range brackets.

I appreciate the figures the Deputy has tabled in respect of income levels. Interestingly, and to bring in another debate, Defence Forces personnel compare favourably with some of the other starting rates the Deputy outlined, given the increases we have allocated in recent years.

I acknowledge the challenge the Deputy has outlined. We need to work on developing schemes that can be applied to people in that cohort.

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