Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Almost two years ago, I stood in this House and said that housing was the real test for this Government and that it had failed and failed spectacularly, undermining our health and education systems and businesses while pushing another generation to emigrate. The only thing that has changed in the interim is that it has managed to get worse under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

The Sinn Féin plan, A Home of Your Own, will put home ownership back into the reach of ordinary working people, providing for a growing stock of privately owned, privately traded and permanently affordable homes. The average full cost of a home under this Government's scheme is €365,000 and until the buyer pays the open market value in full, he or she does not legally own the home. The State equity can be only be paid down by the buyer in lump sums of €10,000. The Government's version of affordable is utterly ludicrous. In April 2023, a two-bedroom house in Athlone was €95,000 cheaper than what was available under the so-called affordable housing scheme that was open at the time, and no equity was held. Under this Government, if the State's equity is not paid down, it must be fully paid when the property is sold or by the children upon inheritance. This Government scheme sees people spending 20 or 30 years paying down their mortgage but still owing the State up to 30% of a future market value of their property. We need at least 25,000 genuinely affordable homes delivered over the next five years at a price of €250,000 plus by the State covering the cost of the land, the site servicing and the utility connections and waiving those development levies. We are talking about a home owned, one that can be passed on to people's children and grandchildren with no hidden equity charges and no penalties for children upon inheritance, mortgaged the same way through mainstream lenders, with any future sale being reserved for the next generation of affordable purchase. That is Sinn Féin's plan. That is what a genuinely affordable housing scheme looks like and that is what those who are crippled under this Government's housing scheme so desperately need.

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