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

The problem is that the Minister keeps missing his target. For example, he did not meet his affordable purchase or cost-rental targets last year. He will not meet them this year. On the first homes scheme, which the Minister is correct that I oppose, the Minister missed his targets by 50% last year and by even more the year before. But also, increasingly the homes he is talking about are not affordable. I have the details of affordable housing fund purchases in my constituency. The full price after the shared equity has to be paid back, is €407,000 to €435,000. That is the Minister’s definition of affordable homes. In fact, you have to have an income of between €85,000 and €100,000 to get into one of these properties. If you look at the LDA’s cost rental, again in my own constituency, in City West, the rents are between €1,400 and €1,800 for a one-bedroom to a three-bedroom home. You would need a gross salary of between €75,000 to €100,000 to be eligible for those. Increasingly, the very groups of people for whom affordable purchase and affordable rental were designed are locked out. The Minister is not delivering enough. It is too expensive. Again, there is more failure to deliver.

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