Eoin Ó Broin
Question:1. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to explain why he missed all of his affordable housing targets in 2023. [15880/24]
View answerThursday, 11 April 2024
Questions (1)
Oral answers (37 contributions)
For the fourth year since the Minister has taken office, he has missed all his affordable housing targets - every single one - and missed them very significantly. Of course, these targets were not sufficient in the first place. Will he explain to the House and, more importantly, to those people desperate to rent or buy homes affordably why he has missed those targets and what he will do this year to ensure not only that the targets he has set will be met but that they will be increased?
I welcome and congratulate the Minister of State, Alan Dillon, on his appointment to the Department. Alan has a specific and detailed interest in housing, and I look forward to working with him, as I am sure colleagues across the House do.
I thank Deputy Ó Broin for the question. As he knows, under Housing for All, which is the plan that we have actually published, that is fully funded and that is working and taking hold right across the country, we have targeted 54,000 affordable homes to be delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies and the LDA and through the first home scheme, a number of measures that he and his party oppose. We will get to that later. The plan sets ambitious targets, coming from a base of zero. We had no affordable homes delivered in any way for a ten-year period. Now we see first-time buyers buying homes and drawing down mortgages at a rate of about 500 a week, the highest since 2006. In 2023, more than 4,000 affordable housing supports were delivered for people, up from 1,757 in the previous year. While that did not meet the target, it is a very significant jump in activity, a 128% increase.
I will give the Deputy one example. We have had in excess of 9,000 registrations for the first home scheme, which he rails against. Thousands of households now are able to buy their homes and have done so because of the scheme, which Sinn Féin, the Deputy's party, opposes. It might also be useful to point out during the course of these discussions that a number of Sinn Féin's own Deputies have been putting parliamentary questions to me asking me to raise price ceilings and to amend the first home scheme, a scheme they oppose. It has been a real and effective support. I have met many of those homeowners, and we will do more on affordable housing again this year. Taking the first home scheme as an example of the delivery, we have seen activity in that space double in the first quarter of this year, which is very significant. That is coupled with the help-to-buy grant, which puts €30,000 of your tax back in your pocket. Some 44,000 households have availed of that, again a measure the Deputy's party opposes.
On affordable housing, and the Deputy is right to ask questions, I have seen nothing from Sinn Féin on alternatives. Our plan is taking hold and working.
To say the Minister's response is Orwellian would be an understatement. Let us look at the facts. As regards his affordable purchase scheme, the only Government scheme that delivers anything close to genuinely affordable homes, he missed his target last year by 63%. As regards the cost-rental scheme, he missed his target by 59%. As regards the first home scheme, which he has lauded, he missed the target by 44%. He promised 2,000 home purchases with that highly controversial, high-risk scheme last year; there were only 1,000. His claim that 4,000 households received supports is just not true because, in fact, the way he has presented the figures to the public is deeply dishonest and does not reflect actual purchases, only approvals. Even as regards his vacant property refurbishment grant, which he says will tackle vacancy, he was short his target by 83%, and the target was only 600 homes.
My question, then, if the Minister is brave enough and honest enough to answer it, is as follows. The schemes for which he is directly responsible have all missed their targets. As a consequence, rents and house prices are rising and young people are locked out and emigrating. I ask the Minister to answer the question. Why has he missed his targets, and what will he do to meet them this year?
I am very happy to stand over our plan, its delivery and its record. That stands in sharp contrast to Sinn Féin's lack of a plan and its lack of alternatives in this space. It has never produced or costed a housing plan. Take the vacant property grant. The Deputy says he is not opposed to it, but he allocated no moneys to it whatsoever in the Sinn Féin alternative budget. To use an example of that, the figures are 7,362 applications to that scheme, 4,253 applications approved and up to €70,000 in grants. If you meet the homeowners who have been able to avail of that grant, you will see that it is making a real difference, and they cannot understand why the Deputy and his party would remove such a measure that works so well. In his response to me, therefore, he might explain to me what Sinn Féin's new vacant property grant looks like. All I can discern from it is that Sinn Féin would get the local authorities to buy the properties and it would sell them back into the market with some criteria and conditions attached à la the buy-and-renew scheme, not this scheme at all.
Of course, the Minister is deliberately misrepresenting not only his failure to meet his own targets but also our party's policy. If people want to know Sinn Féin's policy, they can read it on the website. This is questions to the Minister. He can laugh, but the only affordable housing in my local authority last year was homes to purchase for €400,000-plus. As regards affordable rental in my constituency, it is €1,400 for a one-bed and €1,800 for a three-bed. The Minister might think this is funny, but for hardworking people desperate to buy or rent an affordable home, he made a promise and, year on year, he has broken that promise and missed his targets.
With respect to the vacant property refurbishment grant, approvals are no use; it is about drawdowns. When we in the Opposition talk to the people who are approved, what they tell all of us is that the scheme is badly designed. They cannot access the money and it is not doing what the Minister says it is doing.
I ask him the questions again. Will he explain why he missed his affordable purchase targets by 62%, his cost-rental target by 59% and his controversial, high-risk first home scheme target by 44%? He should answer the questions and stop misrepresenting his failures and our alternatives.
I am not misrepresenting anything. What I am doing is presenting real progress. We had no affordable homes here. First-time buyers are buying at a rate we have not seen since 2006. I and this Government believe in homeownership; you do not.
It is falling under your watch.
But you actually do not, Eoin.
Homeownership is falling under your watch.
A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I did not interrupt once.
You might speak through the Chair. It might be easier.
It might be easier. Take the local authority affordable purchase scheme. More than 4,000 affordable homes have been approved under that scheme already.
Sixteen hundred-----
How many have been delivered, Minister? Delivery.
Please let the Minister respond.
People cannot live on an approval.
Deputy, please.
Sixteen hundred. To give you an example, Eoin, just in the past few weeks, 1,243 affordable purchase homes were advertised in Carlow, Cork city and county, Fingal, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Louth, Meath, Limerick, South Dublin - your own area, Waterford, Westmeath and Wicklow. It is taking hold and it does take time to build capacity.
Why are you missing your targets? That is the question.
People can clearly see-----
You are missing your targets. That is what they can see, Minister.
-----delivery on cost rental, for which we legislated and tenants are in place now.
Year on year, you are breaking your promises and missing your targets, Minister.
Deputy, please.
If that is the best you can do, it really is quite shocking.
Through the Chair, please.
The Minister does provoke.
If I could say, a Leas Cheann Comhairle, this is a tactic that Deputy Ó Broin regularly uses to try to talk me down. He will not.
Thank you, Minister.
He can try-----
No, Minister, we are way over time.
He can try to deny progress-----
No, Minister, we are way over time.
If you just answered the question, Minister, we would not have this problem.
Not only does he deny progress, he blocks progress.
Answer the question.
There are no measures whatsoever from Sinn Féin, no plan and no money.
I am now standing up, which I rarely do. Please. I rarely do it. Tá mé ag bogadh ar aghaidh go dtí an chéad cheist eile ar sonraíodh uain dó in ainm an Teachta Ivana Bacik.