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

I am asking the Minister of State about early stage finance to get the affordable purchase homes we need. He is not answering. He clearly cannot answer and the Minister who can answer is sitting beside him and will not answer the question, which is completely unacceptable. I will read from correspondence sent to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, recently by the Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance. It reads:

Dublin City Council (DCC) supported by the Dept of Housing can fund a Hong Kong based, mega wealthy developer to build 516 affordable and social houses and we cannot get a red cent from anyone – and we had over 1,000 affordable and social homes in our pipeline.

Bartra get 100% funding including for enabling or abnormal works for the affordable and 80% for the social.

I’m livid.

[...]

With 1% of their funding, Darragh, 1% we would have all our projects on site. It seems like you just don’t care [...]

What the hell is going on?

Will the Minister of State tell us why early stage finance for much-needed affordable purchase homes is not being provided so that we can get these projects off the ground? If the Minister of State with responsibility for heritage cannot answer that question, perhaps the senior Minister would.

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