Written answers

Wednesday, 5 May 2021

Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government

Housing Policy

Photo of Bernard DurkanBernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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297. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the extent to which by way of direct build housing he expects to be in a position to meet the housing needs of those currently excluded from being housed or housing themselves on the basis of lack of supply or excessive cost; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3394/21]

Photo of Darragh O'BrienDarragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland’s underlying housing affordability challenges are clearly associated with an imbalance between supply and demand. This Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that affordable, quality housing solutions are available to everyone in Irish society and this is reflected in the Programme for Government "Our Shared Future".

The Programme for Government makes commitments to intoduce affordable purchse and cost rental programmes. The commitments in the programme are a direct response to well-accepted issues with housing affordability in both the home purchase and private rental markets, particularly in major urban areas.

I am currently progressing two affordable purchase schemes. The first of these entails the delivery of affordable homes by local authorities. To support this, under the Serviced Sites Fund, €310 million has been allocated to provide infrastructure to support the delivery of more affordable homes on local authority lands. With a maximum of €50,000 funding available per home, at least 6,200 more affordable homes, to buy or rent, can be facilitated. To date, Serviced Sites Funding of €198 million has been approved in principle in support of 39 projects in 14 local authority areas, which will assist in the delivery of over 4,200 affordable homes.

All Serviced Sites Fund proposals are assessed on the basis of economic analyses submitted by local authorities, which are required to verify local affordability challenges, project viability, and the ability to deliver affordable homes with at least a 10% discount on open market values.

Separately, a new National Affordable Purchase Shared Equity scheme is currently being designed for private developments. My intention is that this measure will be available nationally. It will help bridge the gap, by means of an equity stake purchased by the State, between the maximum mortgage available to eligible households and the price of the new home they wish to buy. The objective of the scheme will be to increase housing supply by activating viable planning permissions and to enable First Time Buyers to buy a new home at a price they can afford sooner than would otherwise be the case.

In relation to Cost Rental, a range of work is ongoing to deliver this new form of housing. My Department is utilising the expertise of Local Authorities, the Land Development Agency, and the Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) to deliver projects in a variety of ways, in order to prove the concept of this new sector. This is in conjunction with the policy development for the sector that is set out in the forthcoming Affordable Housing Bill.

Cost Rental will be informed by National Planning Framework priorities. It will be focused, at least initially, in densely populated urban areas where rental affordability pressures are particularly acute and where State resources can have the biggest impact. It is important that the State targets its affordability measures towards the parts of the country that are experiencing the most extreme affordability challenges.

One of the main sources of State funding for Cost Rental homes is the new Cost Rental Equity Loan scheme. It gives AHBs access to Government loans on favourable terms to cover up to 30% of the cost of new Cost Rental homes.

The detailed provisions to operationalise these schemes in 2021 will be contained within a new housing Bill which I intended to bring to the Oireachtas in the very near future to allow their commencement this year.

In the meantime both the Help to Buy and the Rebuilding Ireland Homeloan remain available to eligible purchasers to make the cost of housing more affordable.

Photo of Bernard DurkanBernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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298. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the extent to which he expects to be in a position to ensure the restart of housing construction with a view to ensuring an adequate supply of houses and an end to spiralling prices; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12221/21]

Photo of Darragh O'BrienDarragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Increasing the supply of public, social and affordable homes is priority for my Department.

In January, the enhanced Level 5 restrictions introduced by Government involved most residential construction being halted from 8 January until 12 April. Certain essential social housing projects, which were scheduled for completion by 30 April were allowed to continue. This has ensured that some social housing continued to be delivered during the first four months of the year.

On 30 March, the Government announced that all residential construction could resume from 12 April 2021.

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