Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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12. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the initiatives planned in 2018 to increase the number of homes available for persons saving for a housing deposit that wish to purchase a home but that are presently unable to afford to do so; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52264/17]

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I ask this question on behalf of the many people who are caught in the middle. They are not eligible for social housing and they are unable to afford to buy a house. While they have good jobs and a household income of €40,000 to €70,000, they are still struggling to put together the money to buy a house because they are paying €1,300 for rent, child care and so on. They want to buy their own home. They have seen all the different plans but they need to see bricks and mortar. They need houses that are affordable to buy or to rent.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Government recognises the housing affordability pressures faced by households, particularly those on low to moderate incomes, in parts of the country where housing costs and demand are highest. A number of measures have already been introduced to maximise and expedite housing supply and improve affordability. The latest housing activity reports indicate that the range of measures being taken are beginning to yield positive impacts in terms of increasing planning permissions, on-site commencement activity and more new homes being connected to the electricity grid.

In addition, under budget 2018 the Government has removed further significant obstacles to building more homes, more quickly and at more affordable prices by investing more in direct house-building by the State, providing additional funding for servicing housing land, removing the capital gains tax incentive to hold onto residential land, leveraging LIHAF investment in enabling infrastructure to provide a proportion of homes from these sites at reduced prices, escalating penalties for land hoarding and providing a new, more affordable finance vehicle for house builders through Home Building Finance Ireland. Furthermore, under budget 2018 I have also secured funding of €25 million over 2018 and 2019 to unlock local authority-owned lands specifically for affordable housing, using delivery models like co-operative housing, which have already proven to be successful but are now needed at a much greater scale. My Department is currently finalising the arrangements for the use of this funding and I expect to announce details in this regard shortly.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for the information. I have a number of questions. What does the Minister consider to be an affordable house? What is an affordable rent? The Central Bank has a limit of 3.5 times income. What figures has the Minister been able to put together on that? Has he assessed the impact of the help-to-buy scheme on the price of houses? Has he looked at developing any new or similar initiative to support house buyers in the next year?

The Minister talked about the possibility of local authority houses being put back on the affordable scheme. It was a very bad move to get rid of that scheme in 2012 and it has left a big gap in the meantime. Local authorities are already out there with plans for social houses. Are they now going to have to start back at the very start with plans for affordable houses on greenfield sites? If they are, those houses will not realistically have gone through the planning system and will not be available for at least a year and a half. Has the Minister considered going through the local authorities in regard to the opportunities for one-off rural houses where people have a site available, so they can get planning permission and get on with building their own home?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Obviously, when we talk about affordability and what is affordable to an individual, it depends on their means. The Central Bank has income limits in place when it comes to taking out a mortgage. When we talk about affordability, we look at two aspects. We look at what is affordable for the developer or builder to be able to be build a house that can then be sold at an affordable price, and we have brought in measures to help with that. Home Building Finance Ireland is one measure that is on the way, and there is LIHAF 1, the newly announced LIHAF 2 and other measures to help builders to build at more affordable prices. The fast-track An Bord Pleanála planning process is another measure in this regard.

The new affordability scheme that will be announced shortly will be looking again at income limits to help those people who are not accessible or eligible for social housing but who cannot afford to put together a mortgage for houses in high demand areas. We will be looking at income limits above the eligibility for social housing in order to bring that to a range of probably between €45,000 and €70,000 or €75,000. That will be finalised when we announce the criteria for access to the affordability scheme.

Of course, we have a number of models already under way in terms of affordability. There is the Ó Cualann model of co-operative housing which was delivering a two-bedroom house for €140,000 and a three-bedroom house for €170,000. We want to do that now at scale, which is what the €25 million fund is for.

With regard to rent pressure zones, to date, the data shows us that rent is increasing by less than 4% in those zones, compared to over 8.5% last year. We will have quarter three data on rent pressure zones next week, I hope, and that will tell us if the trend is continuing. If it is, that is welcome. Every quarter new areas come under those zones, which means rents at an affordable price.

To conclude, within the LIHAF funding there are rent affordability measures on some of those sites, in particular in Cork and also on a site in Dublin, which will allow for rents at an affordable price.