Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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125. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to provide an update on his Department’s efforts to increase the supply of cost rental homes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23907/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Cost rental is a new form of tenure which was introduced under the Affordable Housing Act 2021, where rents are set only to cover the cost of financing, building, managing and maintaining the homes. The Government's Housing for All strategy commits to delivering a total of 18,000 Cost Rental homes over the period to 2030, and significant funding is being made available to support provision by Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), local authorities, the Land Development Agency (LDA), and now also private providers under the new Secure Tenancy Affordable Rental (STAR) investment scheme.

My Department's Affordable Housing Fund now provides funding of up to €150,000 to support Cost Rental delivery by local authorities in the cities.

Last year the Government approved additional support for AHBs to deliver Cost Rental homes by increasing funding under the Cost Rental Equity Loan (CREL) scheme to now a maximum of 55% of capital costs, comprising a mixture of favourable loan financing and State equity investment. My Department has also extended 'Accelerated CREL' early drawdowns, in order to support forward-funding of homes and the achievement of more competitive acquisition or development costs.

The Government has also introduced the Secure Tenancy and Affordable Rental (STAR) investment scheme to support the affordable delivery of new Cost Rental homes by the LDA and private providers.

Since its introduction, over 1,600 Cost Rental homes have been delivered to date and following the introduction of the measures I have already outlined, a strong pipeline of Cost Rental homes is now in place, and under continuous development, across all delivery streams.