Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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237. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he has had correspondence or meetings with representative estate agents bodies on the matter of persons queueing over a number of nights to bid on houses; and his views on whether this is an acceptable practice. [16880/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I have not had correspondence from, or meetings with, estate agents representative bodies on the matter of persons queuing to purchase houses. However, the delivery of more affordable homes, to buy or rent, is a major priority for Government, focusing in particular on those people on low to moderate incomes. Recognising that housing affordability is a major issue for some households, especially in areas such as Dublin, Cork and Galway, several important initiatives have already been implemented to stimulate housing supply at more affordable prices and rents.

Rebuilding Ireland has prioritised supporting the supply of new and more affordable homes more generally through, inter alia, fast-track planning reforms and more flexible planning guidelines; €200 million investment in enabling infrastructure to enable access to key development sites; the development of large-scale mixed-tenure projects on State lands; and the help-to-buy scheme to assist first-time buyers.  

In Budget 2018, the Government removed significant obstacles to building more homes more quickly, by investing more in direct house-building by the State; removing the Capital Gains Tax incentive to hold on to residential land; escalating penalties for land hoarding; introducing a new €25 million Serviced Sites fund and a second LIHAF infrastructural investment fund; and providing a new, more affordable finance vehicle for house building through Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI).

To help renters in the parts of the country where rents are highest and rising, the Government introduced Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs), where rents can only increase by a maximum of 4% annually for three years. Currently, the measure covers almost 57% of existing rental properties across the country, including 100% of rental properties in Dublin and Cork.

As part of the review of Rebuilding Ireland, a further package of affordability measures was announced on 22 January 2018, with a new Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan, a new Affordable Purchase Scheme, and a focus on advancing cost rental projects. More recently, I published new planning guidelines last month to facilitate delivery of a broader mix of apartment types to meet contemporary housing demand, including in the emerging ‘build to rent’ and ‘shared accommodation’ sectors.

While these actions are having an impact and will have a greater impact in time, I consider that a further package of targeted measures focused on addressing affordability is needed to enable low- to moderate-income households, that do not qualify for social housing supports, to purchase or rent homes, particularly in Dublin and other major urban areas.  This will include, but will not be limited to, the deployment of the aforementioned €25 million Exchequer funding, over 2018 and 2019, to unlock local authority-owned lands specifically for affordable housing.  My Department is currently drawing up the criteria for access to this fund, taking account of broader policy on affordable housing, and will be seeking submissions from local authorities in the coming weeks.