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

I intend to have the regulations for cost rental published in three to four weeks. As we explained in the Dáil, the reason for having regulations for cost rental and affordable purchase is they will be easier to change as opposed to primary legislation. I envisage there will be changes as we roll out the scheme and as we see how it works. We will go on a net-income basis, which will be sufficiently high to take in low- and medium-income families and individuals, the cohorts we are targeting. That is why there is no distinction between and an individual and a family.

We are in July, and we should expect to have them published by mid-August, given that the first tenants coming in through the first few schemes will operate under those regulations. They will be published and laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. We are still doing a little work on them, but when they are complete, it might be useful in September to discuss them when we come back to the Houses. They will mean it will be more flexible for us. Some issues have been flagged and Senator Cummins, for example, mentioned his county in the context of median prices and so on. These are new schemes and there are some aspects we will need to work through as we embed them, which is why regulations are the more appropriate way forward, as opposed to having an arbitrary cap on salary or net income. We will work that through.

On the other point, I envisage that cost-rental homes will certainly be new homes. They will be nearly zero energy buildings, NZEB, top-rated homes. Any of the ones I have visited have been built to the best standards. This is a new form of housing tenure. I am excited about it because of the capacity and the interest in it from both the Government, which is supporting it, and ethical pension funds such as those in operation in Vienna, for argument's sake, where they are involved in delivery.I also expect the Land Development Agency to deliver a significant level of cost-rental homes. I believe that the capacity that we have and the potential in this area is vast. We could be looking back on this period when we established this in legislation, in three, four or five years' time, when we have hundreds of thousands of cost-rental tenancies in every part of the country. I want to see a good regional spread of such housing.

In response to Senator Cummins, as we move the cost-rental equity loan, CREL, scheme forward, we will review it. There were eight sites selected in the first tranche of funding. With the affordable housing fund and CREL scheme open, we can look at schemes again as they go forward. I am particularly anxious about near-time delivery. I want to see people in these homes as quickly as possible. I want to see homes being delivered now. That is why the Affordable Housing Bill in general will also allow for mixed tenure turnkey housing. There will be affordable, social and cost-rental housing all in the one development. It will really broaden the opportunities for the delivery of homes for the real people who matter, who are stuck in unaffordable rental traps, living at home with their folks into their 30s and 40s, and who either want to buy or rent at an affordable rate.