Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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2. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the target number of affordable units (details supplied) to be delivered in 2018 via the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, Home Building Finance Ireland, HBFI, and the forthcoming affordable housing scheme. [45427/17]

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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This question centres on the need for affordable housing. There seems to be confusion about what we mean. Affordable housing means housing that is available to purchase for families on gross incomes of between €45,000 and €75,000. That means houses for sale at somewhere between €173,000 and €288,000, including deposits. How many units in that price bracket will be available next year as a result of the budget 2018 measures?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The overall aim of LIHAF is to increase housing supply by removing infrastructural obstacles that were preventing the development of key sites.

A total of 34 projects received preliminary approval in March 2017 and 22 of those have now received final approval. I will be publishing details of these projects shortly. I expect the remaining projects to be considered and approved, if appropriate, in the coming weeks. In any event, all projects have been allowed to proceed to design phase in advance of such approval.

LIHAF has a five-year delivery timeline out to 2021. With most of the infrastructure expected to reach construction phase in 2018, I expect a gradual increase in housing delivery during 2018, with significant increases in the following years as the infrastructure is built, with all of the projected housing, up to 23,000 units if all projects are approved, being delivered by the end of 2021.

Based on current prices in the areas where projects are being advanced, many of the projects outside Dublin will have housing available in the price bracket identified by the Deputy. In Dublin, it is expected that there will be supply of starter two-bedroom apartments and houses at prices under €320,000, with the quantum of these units dependent on the housing mix granted in the planning permissions. Final sales prices will also be dependent on changes in house prices over the intervening period until the homes are delivered.

In many of the projects, local authorities will aggregate LIHAF deductions to provide more affordable housing, under qualifying criteria to be set in line with national policy, which I will be announcing in the coming weeks. Of course, there will also be a social housing dividend from all of the LIHAF sites, together with additional social and affordable housing from the State-owned sites.

In order to make further progress in providing specific affordable housing in price ranges that meet the challenges for those with modest incomes, as part of budget 2018, I announced that a new fund of €25 million will be provided, over 2018 and 2019, to unlock local authority-owned land specifically for the delivery of affordable housing. My Department is currently drawing up the criteria for access to this scheme, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for the information, none of which, of course, answered the question, which asks for the number of units that would be within that affordable bracket. In fact, when the Minister talks about the bands identified by me, he did not use the bands I just read out - €173,000 to €288,000 - but, rather, the bands he provided in a reply to a parliamentary question I tabled last week. According to that reply, none of the LIHAF units in Dublin would be anywhere close to the top end of the affordable band of €288,000. The prices outside Dublin will probably range from €260,000 upwards.

My question is very simple. The Minister keeps telling us that affordable housing will be delivered. He has told us about the extra €50 million for LIHAF and the €750 million for this new funding vehicle. He has not yet explained how the €25 million over two years will work. However, I suspect it is something like the Ó Cualann project. How many units priced between €170,000 and €280,000 will be available for people to buy next year with funding supported by the State? If the Minister cannot answer at this point, he should just tell us he cannot do so and indicate when he expects to be able to give us that information.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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A number of measures have been put in place to try to help affordability in terms of the cost of building or in the context of the ability to rent or buy on the tenant's side. I refer, for example, to the An Bord Pleanála fast-track process, the help-to-buy scheme - which was put in place for that reason, the rent pressure zones and recent changes to the apartment guidelines that are coming on stream. Some of the schemes in Dublin that will be released under LIHAF 1 and LIHAF 2 - which was also announced in the budget, with an additional €50 million in funding - will see homes coming in under the €320,000 price that I mentioned in my initial reply. A number of projects outside Dublin will have houses and apartments for sale or to rent in the price bracket to which the Deputy referred. Therefore, we will be able to bring on stream affordable housing by using the LIHAF finding in particular.

The question also mentions HBFI and the forthcoming affordable housing scheme. Legislation will need to be introduced to put HBFI in place. We are talking about that agency being in a position to provide financing in the course of next year. Depending on what sites it is financing and how quickly it can deliver those, a very small number of new houses may actually be built in 2018, followed by a complete ramping up of supply in 2019.

I will be announcing the criteria for accessing the €25 million affordability scheme for 2018 and 2019 in the coming weeks. We will work with the local authorities on the sites that will be suitable. The housing bodies will then work with us using models such as that relating to the Ó Cualann project, the representatives of which have shared their learning with the Department, to decide where those houses will be located. Again, the important thing is to get those agreements in place and to commence construction. If we can do it under the rapid-build framework, we can do it within six months. At this point, I cannot give the Deputy an exact figure for the number units to be constructed using the €25 million fund.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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There is real confusion here. Housing units at €320,000, €310,000 or €300,000 are not affordable either in or outside of Dublin. I say that because it is only possible to borrow 3.5 times gross household income under the Central Bank's mortgage lending rules. The people who need affordable housing are on incomes of between €45,000 and €75,000. The band of properties for those people are valued at between €170,000 and €288,000. The Minister seems to be suggesting there may be - possibly outside Dublin, possibly through LIHAF, possibly through the new housing finance initiative - some properties at the very top end of that; although he cannot confirm that yet. There has to be a spread of properties in the range between €170,000 and €288,000 next year, the following year and the year after that. I am not hearing that, either in what the Minister has said today or what he said previously.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There is no confusion at all. Under LIHAF 1 and LIHAF 2, depending on the scheme, there will be a cost reduction per unit across the site. Under other schemes there will be affordability, there will be ring-fencing of a certain number of units and affordability criteria will be put in place. If it is the affordable-to-buy scenario, there will be a greater reduction in the market price; if it is an affordable-to-rent model like some of the schemes in, for example, Cork, rent coupons will be given to help people to access that.

Two people on average annual earnings as per the CSO figures can get a mortgage on a home costing €290,000. I have said that a number of the sites in Dublin will have houses or two-bedroom apartments coming in at under €320,000. I will be publishing the data on the 22 projects shortly. The Deputy will be able to see the type of house prices in those schemes outside Dublin. Many of them will come into the price bracket to which he referred.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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We will now take Question No. 1.