Tagann an chéad cheist ón Teachta Ó Broin.
Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions
I am just waiting for the clock, unless the Ceann Comhairle wants to give me ten minutes to ask the question.
Charles is going to sort the clock.
I think we have heard enough of the Deputy this evening, but carry on.
Housing Schemes
Eoin Ó Broin
Question:50. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the reason an open market valuation is being used to establish the price of homes under the Government’s affordable purchase scheme rather than all-in development costs. [43227/24]
Can the Minister explain why he is charging people purchasing homes under his so-called affordable purchase scheme more than the actual cost of delivering those homes? As he knows, he uses open market value rather than full or all-in development costs. This means that if people want to own their homes outright, they do not just have to pay the full cost that the local authority or Land Development Agency, LDA, had to pay to deliver them, in some cases they are obliged to pay between €50,000 and €80,000 more. Why is the Minister using open market value and not all-in development costs?
Affordability and the chance to own your own home are at the heart of this Government’s housing policy. Since 2021, over 8,500 housing supports have been delivered through the various measures we have established and are implementing with our delivery partners.
Since the launch of Housing for All, close to 1,000 local authority affordable purchase homes at upfront affordable prices have been provided. The pipeline continues to grow because over 3,100 affordable purchase homes have been approved for funding support across 21 local authority areas. The upfront price that purchasers availing of the local authority affordable purchase scheme pay for their new home is based on their purchasing power and means. The affordability gap between the market value of the home and the upfront price sets the size of the equity stake held by the local authority, generally redeemable at a time of the purchaser's choosing.
Operating under similar principles, the first home scheme is a further key support for first-time buyers. The published report for the scheme for quarter 3 of this year shows that more than 5,560 approvals have issued since its launch in 2022. I remind the Deputy that this is a scheme he would abolish, that is actually helping first-time buyers to purchase their home. Together with the Croí Cónaithe towns schemes and the help-to-buy scheme, these affordable purchase measures are seeing high demand and are proving highly effective in addressing the affordability challenges so many people are facing. We recognise that. We have made progress but challenges remain. These schemes are working. The prices are transparent. The equity stake is absolutely transparent. We are building that pipeline across the country, an affordable scheme that works, not an illusion of home ownership that you have put forward in your alternative plan.
Of course the Minister failed to answer the question. It could be that he does not understand the details of his scheme or it could be he does not want people to know how it works. Let me remind him. For one of the three-bed terraced units in Shanganagh Castle - a scheme he launched so enthusiastically very recently - the full cost if the purchaser wants to own the home outright is €550,000. It did not cost the LDA €550,000 to deliver that home. In fact, it probably cost about €100,000 less, particularly given that there are no developer's margin or market land values. If the LDA is delivering that affordable home for €450,000, why is the Minister asking the purchaser to pay an extra €100,000 if they want to own it outright? He is charging them the open market value, as set out on the council's website, rather than the all-in development cost. If he used all-in development costs and applied the affordable housing fund, that home could actually be sold at €350,000, not the €450,000 entry price set out in the reply. It is still not affordable enough, but my question is why the open market value rather than the cost of delivery applies. It is a simple question.
These schemes are working. We did launch Shanganagh Castle with enthusiasm because it is a wonderful development. I will invite the Deputy to visit Shanganagh Castle to see it because they are real homes, not an illusion of homes, for real people. I confidently predict every one of them will be sold.
Households pay what they can afford, although the value of the home may be much higher. There is no arbitrary salary cap related to eligibility, unlike in Sinn Féin's scheme, where the limit is €90,000 for a couple. No one gets any support from the Sinn Féin plan. Aspiring purchasers from higher house value areas are supported in the same way as lower income aspiring purchasers in lower house value areas. Householders can sell their homes on the open market if they wish to move or their circumstances change and householders can, unlike in Sinn Féin's scheme, keep any capital value increase on their share of the property. Additional new supply is stimulated and new households are supported into the future as the revolving fund of capital receipts is redeployed to make more new affordable housing available.
Of course, the big difference between our scheme and the Government's scheme is that in ours, the purchaser pays €250,000 and owns the home outright. Under the Government’s scheme, they will pay €550,000.
The Minister still has not answered my simple question, which I will put again as plainly as I can. I suspect he knows the answer but does not have the courage to state it on the Dáil record. Why is the Government charging a family to purchase a three-bedroom unit at Shanganagh Castle €550,000 to own the home outright, when the cost to the State, that is, the cost to the Land Development Agency, is €440,000? Why on earth would it add a further €100,000 by pegging it to a fictional open-market value, rather than say it cost the Land Development Agency €440,000 to deliver the home, apply an affordable housing fund subsidy and sell it at €350,000, and if the family want to own it outright, they can buy it for €450,000? Why is the Government charging them more than the cost of delivery if they want to own the home outright by, in this instance, an additional €100,000?
The facts are, based on the returns received from local authorities for transactions completed this year, that the average upfront affordability purchase price paid by borrowers is €267,000 for a range of two-, three- and four-bedroom homes. Look at the difference between the scheme that is working on the ground and Sinn Féin's scheme, where purchasers do not even own the land the property is built on. In Sinn Féin's utopian world, it will tell people who they can sell the house to and at what price and, furthermore, where they can live, given the Deputy has never explained where Sinn Féin is going to build these properties. What we are doing is building them out directly through the local authorities. The Deputy might find this amusing but if, God forbid, he ever got into this seat-----
It is the Minister's unwillingness to answer the question that is amusing.
-----he would have to deliver homes. He knows the glossy brochure that Sinn Féin published will not do that, given he could not state earlier, even in respect of the home-you'll-never-own plan, that anyone will even lend to it. Sinn Féin will not even get development finance to lend to it.
Housing Schemes
Eoin Ó Broin
Question:51. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to confirm the price of the one-, two- and three-bedroom cost-rental units in Oscar Traynor Road, O'Devaney Gardens and Shanganagh Castle. [43228/24]
Of course, the Minister does not know what the answer was because he was not here, but-----
I listened very intently to the Deputy and he did not answer the question.
-----I am happy to discuss it with him again.
I hope I might have a better chance of getting a straight answer to this straight question. There are three cost-rental schemes, at Shanganagh Castle, O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road. The contracts for all those cost-rental schemes have been signed. Will the Minister put on the record of the Dáil what the cost of renting a one-, two- and three-bedroom unit will be in each of those three developments? That will allow the public to decide whether they are affordable.
We have already seen that the public are responding to cost rental. The Deputy knows that and it might disappoint him, but the Government's Housing for All plan, as he knows, targets the delivery of 18,000 cost-rental homes by approved housing bodies, AHBs, the Land Development Agency, which the Deputy would abolish, and local authorities, although he has not yet said how Sinn Féin will engage them to build properties. I have approved funding for the acquisition of cost-rental homes in O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road, a scheme the Deputy railed against, under the cost-rental equity loan scheme, which provides funding to AHBs of up to 55% of capital costs through a combination of long-term, low-interest loans and State equity investment.
As arrangements are still being finalised by delivery partners, full details relating to the cost rents are not yet publicly available. These details will be announced in due course, closer to the time of delivery, and I will make sure the Deputy will be one of the first to know. Additionally, the LDA is partnering with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to deliver 195 cost-rental homes at Shanganagh Castle. Again, the proposed cost rents are being finalised and are subject to a designation process but are anticipated - I say this to be helpful - to be in the region of €1,250 per month, with applications opening later this year. That is long-term, secure, State-backed affordable rents. In all those cases, the minimum threshold we have set, of 25% below market price, will be greatly exceeded. We are looking at a range of 30% to 35% for reductions on what the rents would be on the open market.
The delivery of cost-rental homes on each of these sites will contribute to sustainable mixed-tenure communities, alongside high-quality affordable homes and very good affordable purchase homes also supported by the Government and my Department. The LDA is due to advertise and launch the cost-rental homes at Shanganagh Castle next month and the details of these cost rents will be made available at that time, including to the Deputy.
It is remarkable that the Minister said the rents have not yet been finalised, because they have been. We know that because John Coleman from the Land Development Agency told an Oireachtas committee that. Contrary to the information the Minister has put before us, we do know that the rents for a one-bedroom unit in Shanganagh will be €1,250 a month-----
That is what I said.
-----but we also know that rents for a two-bedroom unit will be €1,520 and that those for a three-bedroom unit will be €1,700. That is the single highest cost rent for a three-bedroom or a two-bedroom unit delivered to date.
I also understand that Dublin City Council has signed the contracts with Tuath and Clúid for the cost rentals in O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road. While the one-bedroom units will come in very similar to those in Shanganagh, the two-bedroom units will be more expensive, in excess of €1,600 a month. The three-bedroom units in O'Devaney Gardens will reach €1,900 a month. The Minister knows this information. He could have put it into the public domain. I suspect he would prefer if it does not go into the public domain until after the election, because not only are these rents now substantially higher than rents for existing renters in the private rental sector, but they are nowhere close to affordable.
I will give the Minister a second opportunity. Why does he not just tell us what the rents in Oscar Traynor Road and O'Devaney Gardens are going to be?
I have answered the question honestly on the record of the Dáil. I do not have a track record of misleading the Dáil. I have always been open and honest with people. The Deputy can laugh at that but his party's behaviour over recent weeks in that regard has been nothing short of reprehensible, so I do not think it is something to laugh about. I am not going to conflate the two issues, but when we put answers on the Dáil record or speak on the Dáil record, we do so honestly and openly with the information we have.
More than 2,180 cost-rental homes have been delivered by the State, by approved housing bodies, local authorities and the LDA and also through the cost-rental tenant in situ scheme. This tenure did not exist three years ago but this Government legislated for it and introduced and implemented it. I have met many of these cost-rental tenants who are absolutely delighted to have got those homes at affordable rents. They are safe, secure and long tenures in well-built and well-managed developments.
It is simply factually incorrect for the Minister to come to the Dáil and say the rents on those three projects have not been finalised. They have been. The legal contracts have been signed and the Minister knows that, and people can judge that for themselves.
I am a strong advocate of cost rental - I have argued for it for more than two decades - and the Minister knows I supported the legislation to facilitate it even though the Government has taken a very good concept and mangled it beyond recognition, by which I mean the rents are simply not affordable. Between €1,500 and €1,600 a month for a two-bedroom unit, or between €1,700 and €1,900 a month for a three-bedroom unit, is not affordable. A growing number of people for whom cost rental was designed, who are not eligible for social housing, are being priced out. The number of applicants for cost-rental homes applying to the LDA and AHBs who are being refused because they do not earn enough to get cost rental but earn too much for social housing is growing ever larger. There is no such thing as cost-rental tenant in situ because not one AHB has bought one of those homes from the Housing Agency and they are still paying full market rents.
I ask the Minister a third time. Will he tell us what the rents will be in Oscar Traynor Road and O'Devaney Gardens, because he knows what they are?
I have told the Deputy, on the record of the House, that they will be around €1,250, according to the information I have. The final rent figures have not yet been decided on. What I can tell the Deputy-----
The contracts have been signed.
-----and this will disappoint him, is that not only-----
The LDA has published the information.
The Deputy got away with this earlier on when he interrupted me consistently in the previous debate. I ask him to let me answer the question. He might not like-----
I would love the Minister to answer the question. I invite him to do so.
Please, Deputy.
The Deputy's arrogance knows no limits and I would check it if I were him. We have delivered 2,180 cost-rental homes from nothing, and it might disappoint him to hear that the pipeline of cost rental amounts to 7,700 homes.
Scaling up the delivery of cost rental, a tenure that did not exist before, will have a very positive impact on the private rental market as well. I meet those people who get their cost-rental homes. I can tell the Deputy, and he knows this from the report that was published by the Irish Council for Social Housing, that if you look at the feedback from people who have got these homes, it is absolutely completely and utterly positive and we will continue to drive the delivery of cost-rental homes for as long as we are here.