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

In fact the figures for delivery under the genuine affordable housing schemes are much worse than the number the Minister quoted here. In his first year as Minister, no affordable purchase homes were delivered and only 65 cost-rental homes. In 2022, there were only 323 genuinely affordable homes to purchase delivered and just under 700 cost-rental homes. The Minister is right that we do not have the full data yet and I look forward to seeing it but by the end of the third quarter, there were only 159 affordable purchase homes and only 56 cost rental, although, in fairness, the LDA brought on stream several hundred cost rentals by the end of the year and I assume they will be in the numbers.

The problem is not only are the Minister’s targets too low but he is missing them. I suspect, and we will debate this when we get the final figures, that he will not have met his figures for affordable purchase or affordable cost rental through AHBs or the Land Development Agency at the end of this year. That will be the third year as Minister that he has missed those crucial targets. Hiding behind first home scheme approvals to massage the figures does not get away from the fact that the Minister is not delivering.

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