Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ministers for being in the Chamber and for taking this debate. This is a good report and I encourage or ask the Government to give it good consideration.

Section 3 deals with recommendations on sustainable housing supply. I want to speak about recommendations 18 and 19, which are about money and finance, the State supplying finance, getting involved and providing essential finance, which is a key component for construction.

The State is already involved in that sector because the Housing Finance Agency - former councillors like Deputy Willie Aird who served on local authorities will know this - lends money to local authorities and to AHBs. As of the end of 2023, the agency had lent €7.4 billion out and it is lending new money now to those entities at rates of 1.75% to 2.75%. These are very good rates for money to be available to the AHBs and to the local authorities.

Home Building Finance Ireland, HBFI, which lends to the construction sector, had about €2.7 billion in loan approvals by the end of 2024 but is lending money at rates of 4.75% to 7.5% to the construction sector. That is at an average rate of 6.45%. That is not right or fair. Why is the Government lending money to State bodies locally and to AHBs at such great rates and then is lending money to the construction sector at much higher rates? That is not right. The construction sector will then have to put margin on top of that and everything gets really expensive. I ask the Government to give serious consideration to getting the HBFI rates aligned with the Housing Finance Agency.

There is no reason not to. We are either in a housing emergency or we are not. If the Government has to take the risk on those rates to make sure finance is flowing to builders, then it should do it. We are in an emergency. Those rates need to close. I ask that we look at that. The HBFI is a great idea and it has huge potential, but it needs to lend its money at reasonable rates for builders to work with.

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