Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have already seen that the public are responding to cost rental. The Deputy knows that and it might disappoint him, but the Government's Housing for All plan, as he knows, targets the delivery of 18,000 cost-rental homes by approved housing bodies, AHBs, the Land Development Agency, which the Deputy would abolish, and local authorities, although he has not yet said how Sinn Féin will engage them to build properties. I have approved funding for the acquisition of cost-rental homes in O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road, a scheme the Deputy railed against, under the cost-rental equity loan scheme, which provides funding to AHBs of up to 55% of capital costs through a combination of long-term, low-interest loans and State equity investment.

As arrangements are still being finalised by delivery partners, full details relating to the cost rents are not yet publicly available. These details will be announced in due course, closer to the time of delivery, and I will make sure the Deputy will be one of the first to know. Additionally, the LDA is partnering with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to deliver 195 cost-rental homes at Shanganagh Castle. Again, the proposed cost rents are being finalised and are subject to a designation process but are anticipated - I say this to be helpful - to be in the region of €1,250 per month, with applications opening later this year. That is long-term, secure, State-backed affordable rents. In all those cases, the minimum threshold we have set, of 25% below market price, will be greatly exceeded. We are looking at a range of 30% to 35% for reductions on what the rents would be on the open market.

The delivery of cost-rental homes on each of these sites will contribute to sustainable mixed-tenure communities, alongside high-quality affordable homes and very good affordable purchase homes also supported by the Government and my Department. The LDA is due to advertise and launch the cost-rental homes at Shanganagh Castle next month and the details of these cost rents will be made available at that time, including to the Deputy.

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