Eoin Ó Broin
Dublin Mid-West · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“It is disappointing that, when several journalists have contacted the Government and the Department looking to confirm on the record that HAP and RAS tenants are not included - we know that they are not - and set out why and if that will be reconsidered, instead of giving a straight answer that, yes, they have been excluded, and explainin…”
“Will it try to remove survivors when they chain themselves to the gates in protest, as they have said they will, or will it finally listen to them and hear their calls for respect, justice and truth? Will it buy the Bessborough site and stop this outrage from happening?”
“According to the latest summary of social housing needs assessments, 61,000 households are on council waiting lists, although we know a large number of them are single people. About 49,000 households at the end of last year were on HAP, while there were about 7,500 private sector RAS recipients of the 14,000.”
“We are setting out five specific sets of circumstances where that would be permissible. Under our scheme, the person moving from Youghal to Clonakilty would have to have a specific reason like taking up a job or education in Clonakilty or accessing long-term medical treatment, etc.”
“First, importantly it would be for both people on the list and people in receipt of social housing support, such as HAP and RAS. It is not just the 61,000 households on our council lists but also the 55,000 or so households in HAP or private sector RAS.”
“Sure. I thank the Minister of State for his reply. My natural disposition as a person is to treat people at face value, but ten years in this House has made a bit of a cynic of me.”
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“Of course, as we know, last year the cost-rental targets were missed by a factor of 15% and the Minister's affordable purchase target was missed by a staggering 61%. On top of that, of course, increasingly these homes are not affordable. Right across Dublin, for example, the full price of a so-called "affordable home" delivered under the Minister's affordable purchase scheme, if you want to own the home outright, is up to €500,000. In nobody's calculations is that affordable. Similarly, we are now seeing cost rents coming in as high as €19,000 a month for a three-bedroom house, and €17,000 a month for a two-bedroom unit. A growing number of people who are not eligible for social housing are excluded from the Minister's schemes. Can I ask again why he has not included a specific target for cost rental and affordable purchase?”
“I would like the House to note that the Minister, of course, completely avoided the question and instead gave what can only be described as an Orwellian response to a simple question. There is no new starter home programme. What the Government has done is it has taken a bunch of schemes that existed under the previous Government's plan and, indeed, its predecessor, it has bundled them all up and it has added them into a global figure. The reason it is important, in particular, that there are targets for the delivery of cost rental and affordable purchase is the Minister funds them. He sets the targets for local authorities, AHBs and the LDA, directly and indirectly, to deliver those homes.”
“There were many omissions in the Minister's ill-fated housing plan launched only a matter of weeks ago but one that was particularly astonishing is the removal of targets, either across the life cycle of the plan or, indeed, on an annual basis, for cost-rental and affordable purchase homes delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies, AHBs, and the Land Development Agency, LDA. Can the Minister explain why these targets that were in his predecessor's plan were removed and does that mean he has abandoned targets or he is simply not willing to share them with us?”
“No Bill that any of us on this side of the House propose is. We do not have the benefit of civil servants or the ability to table Bills that place a charge on the State. The purpose of these Bills is to provoke debate and drive greater consideration of matters on Committee Stage. It is unfortunate the committee will be denied that opportunity but I am sure we will find other ways to raise, discuss and consider this very important matter in the time ahead.”
“I ask him to continually make the case in his parliamentary party and in his Department for urgent action on that vague commitment in the programme for Government. If he does not believe the approach of any of us in the Opposition are correct, will he set out what additional measures, extra investment or extra incentives, if that is the desire of Government, there will be to ensure that the 750,000 people who live in the private rental sector according to the census are living in homes that meet minimum standards and that those minimum standards are adequate, particularly given the very high rents that renters are either paying themselves or that are being covered through a combination of RAS, HAP or rent supplement and tenants' own top-ups? As I have said, this Bill is not perfect.”
“I am not appealing to the Minister of State to change his mind, because he has been given his instructions and will vote accordingly, but we need more than a vague commitment to examine this matter in a relatively vague and unimpressive housing plan. Far too many people will be sleeping in very expensive and very cold homes tonight. What I am therefore asking Deputy O'Sullivan to do with whatever limited powers he has as a Minister of State is to go back to his Department and his line Minister, who is also his party colleague, and say that he supports Deputy Murphy's argument - I did not disbelieve him when he said so at the start of his speech - for retrofitting and for improving the living conditions of the people living in some of the poorest quality homes in the State.”
“That 330,000 relates to dwellings and not tenancies but that means the total number of registered tenancies should be greater than 330,000 rather than 240,000. That highlights the ongoing and very significant level of non-registration, which is a criminal offence. That is relevant to this discussion. Over many years, the Government has often argued against Opposition Bills by reference to unintended consequences and the ultimate impact on renters of a loss of stock, as the Minister of State has mentioned. Part of the difficulty with that is that it is always the tenants who ultimately have to pay the price. In this instance, they will pay the price through energy inefficient homes, even higher heating bills and health consequences.”
“It is right and proper that Deputy Murphy's Bill focuses on the private rental sector but it would be remiss of any of us to have this conversation without acknowledging that the State, which should be the best landlord in the public and private sectors, is the worst in many instances. The very good efforts of the communities in those flats, the local elected representatives and Dublin City Council are not being adequately supported by the Department. That needs to be addressed. I will make a couple of additional points. This is not a criticism of the Minister of State but he referenced the ESRI report and the 330,000 rental dwellings recorded in the census. The most recent figure for RTB registrations is 240,000.”
“For many years, Dublin City Council did not invest sufficiently in upgrading and maintaining that stock but it is currently doing the right thing. It has very advanced plans to increase the energy efficiency of that stock and to implement basic minimum standards. However, the Department and the Government are holding them back. Initially, they insisted that any capital works funded for the upgrading of those inner-city flat complexes had to increase density. The Government and the Department have now moved on and are now saying they cannot reduce density. In many of these locations, that is not possible.”
“My own local authority, which has one of the highest levels of inspections in the State, predominantly inspects older properties or inspects properties at the request of the tenant rather than systematically inspecting all properties. While I know it does not come under this Bill, it must be said that some of the worst rental stock in the State from the point of view of energy efficiency and energy poverty is not in the private rental sector. Flat complexes built in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, particularly those in inner urban Dublin but also in Cork city, such as the Oliver Bond flats, Countess Markiewicz House or Pearse House, are in an even worse state. I say this because it is pertinent to the Minister of State's Department.”
“There is one area where I am not completely in agreement with Deputy Murphy. I think we need to look very carefully at mechanisms to assist landlords who are currently unable to cover the costs of retrofitting and improving the energy efficiency of homes to do so for the benefit of tenants. That is an area that needs greater work. The ESRI report engages with this question to some extent. There is the whole issue of the split incentive. Why would a landlord invest in upgrading the stock when the primary benefit is to the tenant? It is an issue we have to come back to because, in the main, we have a very large volume of private rental stock that is old or older. The Minister of State is right that the number of inspections has increased but inspections are predominantly led by demand or by age.”
“However, because the Government is denying this we will not be able to have this discussion in this format at committee, although we will find other ways to do so. It is really quite startling because on Tuesday EnergyCloud Ireland came before the committee. The Minister of State is well aware of EnergyCloud and he and his party colleagues are supporting it. In one of the questions I asked, I made the case that while EnergyCloud is currently focusing on social housing tenancies, there are far greater levels of poverty in the private rental sector, the tenant purchase sector and the modest-income private homeowning sector than there are in the social housing sector, which the witnesses confirmed. I said that while it has a pilot under way in Cork at present, this is an issue that would have to be addressed.”
“In fact, I tabled a Private Members’ motion back in 2018 which the then Government did not oppose that not only prescribed 25% inspections annually but also sought to ensure a form of certification of compliance with minimum standards was provided. That was something we were told funding would be delivered and targets set for but it never materialised. There is merit in having a considered discussion in committee as to whether or not those minimum standards should be improved, especially in relation to energy efficiency. My view is they should. That could be the specific targets or the timelines set out in Deputy Murphy’s Bill. These are matters our committee could rightfully consider. We could listen to the views of tenants, people involved in retrofitting and energy efficiency, tenants’ and landlords’ organisations, etc.”
“My difficulty with the Government’s opposing this Bill is nothing the Minister of State has said and nothing in the new housing plan, bar a very vague commitment, sets out what the Government is going to do not only to address the energy inefficiency and energy poverty experienced by people in the private rental sector much more so than in other forms of tenure. There is not even a recognition that further action needs to be taken. At the centre of all this is that we have a set of minimum standards. When Eoghan Murphy was the Minister we were told, as Deputy Murphy will remember, we were going to move to a situation where 25% of all private rental properties would be inspected annually, so that on a cycle of four years minimum standards could be enforced.”
“I thank Deputies Murphy and Coppinger for introducing the Bill and allowing us the opportunity to discuss this very important matter. Sinn Féin is always happy to support any Bill the intention of which is to strengthen the rights and improve the living conditions of people in the private rental sector. While no Bill, especially no Opposition Bill, is perfect or going to solve the problem by itself, allowing Bills such as these to progress to at least Committee Stage allows for further consideration of the matters and proper discussion.”
“The €100 million for vacant social housing acquisitions for families who are homeless has existed every year since 2020. In fact, this year the Government cut the funding for that scheme from last year. The €400 million equity fund has been in place since 2023. Yes, it is going to be extended but it is not new. The only thing that is new is the Tánaiste refusing to tell us and the public how many new-build social, cost-rental and affordable homes the Government will deliver each year and how it will make them actually affordable. The Government failed in 2016 and 2021 and it is failing again today.”
“-----and he has been telling us the same story over and over again. In 2016, Simon Coveney’s plan had all of the same promises, all of which were broken. In 2021, Darragh O'Brien's plan again had all of the same promises and all were broken. Today, all we are getting is more of the same. None of the things the Tánaiste has just described as new are new.”
“The Government could have taken on board the recommendations of its own Housing Commission or adopted the many solutions promised by Sinn Féin and others. It could have included actual, measurable targets year on year for all of its schemes, but why would it bother doing that when it knows already it is going to miss them? Instead, it has decided to do nothing different and nothing new. Given the Government's decade of failure, why should anyone believe anything is going to change now?”
“For ten years, the Government has starved our councils of the resources and staff to deliver public housing on public land at scale, all the while showering investor funds, corporate landlords and big developers with subsidies and tax breaks like confetti. Today's plan does not move a single inch from that disastrous approach. Despite what they are going to say on the radio and television, the Government’s backbenchers must be privately reeling. In fact, even the Minister for housing, Deputy James Browne, is not hanging around to defend his own plan. Instead of debating with Opposition spokespeople on television and radio this evening, he is fleeing the country to speak - believe it or not - at a housing conference in England. It did not have to be this way.”
“This is on land once owned by the council and gifted for free to a developer by the Tánaiste’s Government. The Government's failure on affordable housing will mean that the locked-out generation will continue to be locked out, forced to choose between their parents’ box bedroom or emigration. The only promise the Government is keeping in this plan is its promise to attack renters. From March of next year, tens of thousands of renters will face even higher rip-off rents for the privilege of being forced to live in smaller and darker apartments. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s housing policy was written by and for big investors and developers to benefit their private interests. The needs of ordinary people, workers and families have once again been ignored.”
“Once again, the Government is underestimating overall housing need and, as a result, the housing deficit will continue to grow. There is no increased funding or targets for the delivery of social homes. The result will be even longer council waiting lists and ever more adults and children experiencing homelessness. There is no increased funding or targets for the delivery of genuinely affordable homes. Instead, the Government is brazenly trying to rebrand unaffordable private homes as somehow affordable. There is also no plan to fix the Government's broken affordable housing schemes. This week, we learned so-called affordable apartments in O'Devaney Gardens in Dublin will cost €500,000. So-called affordable rental homes in the same development are expected to cost €1,900 a month.”
“After months of delay, it is finally here. Almost a year into this Government, it is only now publishing its housing plan. Given the amount of time this has taken, we can be forgiven for expecting something bold and new, a plan, as the Tánaiste once said himself, to once and for all tackle the housing crisis. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Anyone who will take the time to read the plan will know the emperor has no clothes. In fact, this is not a new housing plan at all. It is nothing more than a reheating and repackaging of the failed housing plan of the last Government. Today should have been a moment of hope for all those in need of affordable housing. Instead, it is another punch in the gut for all those without a home of their own.”
“Again, it has made appeals around Garda resources and opening times for Garda stations, key amenities in terms of health facilities, school places and school transport, addressing the very real concerns around issues of community safety and supporting both the host community and those who are living there in IPAS accommodation to get through these issues.”
“I urge the Minister to hear what we on both the Opposition and Government benches are telling him, to hear what the community is telling him, and change that approach. The Saggart Village Residents' Association, with which we have been engaging on an ongoing basis, sent a detailed briefing note to all the local TDs recently. It urged us to listen and engage with the concerns of the local community, to do nothing to escalate tension for political gain, to get accurate information into the public domain quickly and to support groups and residents' groups in key ways to resolve the situation.”
“Decisions are not being made, investment is not taking place, and reasonable requests by the local community for increased investment, Garda resources, community safety, education, health facilities and supports for people in the community as well as for those in accommodation provided through the Department are simply not forthcoming. In fact, at most of the meetings, key decision-makers who can make decisions on these matters are not even in the room. As a consequence of that, before the savage assault on the young child a number of weeks ago and the nights of serious and unacceptable disorder on the streets of Saggart, the community was telling us they had a problem. Now, they are telling us they are fearful and angry and feel let down.”
“In an adjoining building, homeless families are accommodated by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive. When any of us elected representatives for the constituency talk to people in those communities, they tell us that even before the horrendous events of recent weeks, they felt ignored and let down. The reason for that is that the promised engagement has not materialised. There have been meetings; there is no dispute about that. We have met the Minister and his engagement team has met local elected representatives and the community. However, the communities on the ground are saying they are not deep and meaningful engagements.”
“When the Government took the decision to purchase the convention centre and hotel in Citywest, it said there was going to be a new template for State-owned provision of accommodation for people coming to Ireland to seek international protection. It gives me no pleasure to say it, but the events of the past two weeks show that template is in tatters. The community of Saggart and the surrounding areas of Citywest and Rathcoole are strong, vibrant, diverse communities. People are generous and welcoming and have been going above and beyond to do the right thing during recent times. It is also important to acknowledge that inside Citywest itself there are men seeking international protection and Ukrainian families with children receiving temporary protection.”
“All homeowners affected by building defects caused by shoddy building practice and light-touch Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael regulation deserve equal treatment. Anything less than that is unacceptable. I am proud to stand here to support this cross-party motion today.”
“At every stage when problems have been highlighted to the Government, the response has been delay, including delay in bringing forward the emergency legislation agreed a year ago to lift the cap. We still do not know from the Minister when it is coming. There has been delay in the long-awaited updating of the scientific underpinning of the scheme, IS 465:2018. There has been delay in getting Sligo and Fingal into the scheme. It has been delay, delay, delay. As other Deputies have said, we know what works; the Fingal pyrite scheme works. That is what should have been done in this instance. The worst thing is the Government is about to make exactly the same mistake when it comes to Celtic tiger-era defects.”
“In 2018, the Cabinet agreed to have a remediation scheme but it did not open until 2021 and within a matter of months homeowners knew that that scheme was broken. In 2022, Darragh O'Brien rushed through legislation and refused to countenance 84 specific amendments drafted by homeowners to make the scheme fit for purpose. Here we are in 2025 and with fewer than 250 homeowners who have had their homes remediated, the Minister tells us that is good progress. We are seven years on and a tiny fraction of the number of people affected by this crisis have had their homes remediated, and none of those people got 100% redress. They were down by tens of thousands of euro.”
“I listened to the Minister for housing earlier and if ever there was an example of a Minister out of touch with the lived realities of homeowners and tenants impacted by defective concrete blocks and building materials, that was it. My God, he clearly has no understanding of the reality that people who represent these counties are articulating today. Given that it has been 15 long years since homeowners and tenants first brought this to Government's attention, it highlights a callous disregard and a lack of urgent action for people who have done nothing wrong. In 2010, homeowners in Donegal, Mayo and other affected counties started to highlight the impact of defective building materials. In 2017, the Government commissioned and then published an expert group report.”
“If anybody thinks, though, that the €5 billion or so currently being invested in social and affordable homes is enough, it is not. The report of the Housing Commission makes that very clear. Until this Government accepts that and increases the funding significantly, we are not going to make sufficient headway in tackling this crisis.”
“Clarity from the Minister, publicly and for the AHB sector, would be useful. Likewise, clarity is needed on whether there will be any attempt to force developers, including those who have signed turnkey or Part V agreements with AHBs, to pass on the VAT reduction announced in the budget last week. I do not believe there is a legally enforceable mechanism from the Government's point of view, but given those apartments are already under construction or are already viable, why should the State be paying an extra €20,000 per apartment for a VAT reduction simply to increase the profits of those large, viable and profitable developers? To conclude, any extra money for social and affordable housing is welcome. We will not stand in the way of additional investment.”
“I realise there is a CALF review and I hope the Oireachtas housing committee gets to participate in it, but ultimately we need to move to a payment-and-availability-type agreement for all AHB properties. Needless to say, that raises difficulties with historical CAS and capital loan and subsidy scheme properties from two decades ago. Many of the loans are now being paid off in full and, again, the AHBs simply do not have the revenue to maintain what is now ageing stock. I appreciate it is not a straightforward problem to resolve but it needs to be addressed. On the recent changes to apartment design standards and VAT, we have AHB projects that have been through CALF and HFA approval. If developers come with a revised planning application, there will be a question mark over whether they need to have HFA approval again.”
“Ultimately, that is where we need to go to make the schemes stack up; otherwise, we will struggle to get a sufficient number of what we generally call special-needs AHB units to meet sectoral demand. There should also be far greater integration of those units into general-needs affordable and social housing projects. More flexible use of funding, including HFA funding, would be useful in this regard. There is a fundamental question to be asked about the CAS. Since it provides no monthly availability payment, the rent raised is simply insufficient to meet ongoing management, maintenance and future structural repair costs. It is essentially the same problem as the poor funding mechanism for local authorities.”
“Of course, they should require sanction from the Department, but the State-wide local authority borrowing cap is antiquated and needs to be removed and replaced by the Department with a better, more flexible mechanism with adequate checks and balances. On individual schemes, the smaller special-needs AHBs face a challenge because, traditionally, they have accessed the CAS rather than CALF and HFA loans. They are struggling to make schemes stack up for them to be viable. We need to move to a position where those smaller schemes, such as those of the Housing Association for Integrated Living, HAIL, and Focus Ireland, combine CAS with HFA loans and payment-and-availability agreements.”
“Barry O’Leary, the former chief executive of the HFA, appeared before the Oireachtas committee about a year ago, he said the lower interest rate charged to local authorities would reduce the rent in an average cost-rental tenancy by about €100 per month. That is a significant reduction over the course of a year; yet, because of an arbitrary borrowing cap across the entire local government sector, local authorities generally cannot borrow, whether from the HFA or the European Investment Bank, to fund cost-rental housing. Dublin city has been able to produce one development, in St. Michael’s Estate, but due to the cap it will not be able to produce more. I am not arguing that local authorities should be able to borrow whatever they want.”
“Ultimately, we will only know the position for sure when we see completion data throughout next year and the year after. Local authorities can borrow from the HFA at a lower interest rate than AHBs. The reduction is significant. Particularly for cost-rental tenants, that has a significant knock-on effect on the rent charged. As the Minister knows, at current rents many cost-rental developments exclude a growing portion of those who earn too much to qualify for social housing but not enough to afford the rents in the private rental sector. They are now being excluded from cost rental because the rents are so high that they fail the affordability test. When Mr.”
“I acknowledge that the considerable delays with CALF and CREL stage 1 approvals have been broadly resolved. That is what I am hearing from the AHB and local government sectors and developers engaged in turnkey and Part V developments, but there still seems to be some problem with the capital assistance scheme, CAS. Whatever the Minister’s public position on these matters, we need to ensure, particularly for smaller AHBs, AHBs with smaller stock and AHBs delivering special-needs housing for people exiting homelessness or with mental health challenges or physical or intellectual disability needs, that we unblock whatever delays exist regarding CAS applications. I am hearing from local authorities and AHBs that the pipeline for 2026 and 2027 regarding social and affordable homes has been affected by the delays.”
“It is not sensible to proceed by periodically having to come in here at the last minute to raise the borrowing cap. If the Minister has visibility on what he is likely to need from the AHB sector between now and 2030, there needs to be a sensible mechanism for incremental increases, obviously checked against whatever milestones are agreed between the relevant Departments. The Minister stated in response to a question at the Revised Estimates committee meeting two weeks ago that there had been no delays in the delivery of projects funded in part by the HFA. Only a couple of days earlier, at the Construction Industry Federation conference, both the AHB sector and the private residential development sector, which provide many turnkey developments, were making the opposite case, citing significant delays.”
“I say this by way of context. This is the only way we are going to meet social and affordable housing need through local authorities and AHBs. The Taoiseach gets up and talks about €7 billion, but when this is boiled down to what is actually being invested in the forms of tenure in question, it represents a much smaller portion. Whatever way we do this – whether with the inadequate targets the Government has said, with revised targets in a new housing plan, which we await, or with the more ambitious targets that Sinn Féin and others have set – AHB borrowing is going to continue to increase significantly. Therefore, I urge the Minister to engage with the Oireachtas committee at the earliest possible opportunity on the medium-term plan for the HFA.”
“I refer to the objectively expressed need of those on local housing waiting lists, those in insecure and expensive HAP and RAS tenancies and those in need of affordable homes. Based on the Housing Commission’s own recommendations, we probably need an average of 15,000 new-build social homes per year from now to 2030 to meet that need. My estimation is that we also need an average of 10,000 cost-rental and affordable-purchase homes per year, and they need to be genuinely affordable. Unlike the Government, I also believe there needs to be a significant budget for acquisitions over the next five years. That means direct Exchequer apportionment for social and affordable homes will need to increase by €2 billion to €2.5 billion. AHB borrowing, which is currently around €1.5 billion per year, will probably need to move to about €2 billion.”
“The Minister will not be surprised to hear me say we are not spending enough on the direct delivery of social or affordable homes by local authorities, AHBs and the LDA. When we dealt with the Revised Estimates two weeks ago, Deputy Ahern asked how much money was spent last year through Exchequer expenditure, AHB borrowing and the Land Development Agency on delivering social and affordable homes. The figure is approximately €5 billion. About €3 billion of that was Exchequer expenditure and the rest involves about €1.5 billion in AHB borrowing and the remainder last year for the LDA. Overall expenditure will increase somewhat this year. That is simply nowhere near enough to deliver the volume of social or affordable homes required to meet current needs.”
“As the Minister knows, Sinn Féin will be supporting this legislation. I thank the officials from his Department for the very detailed briefing they provided to committee members on both the Bill and wider issues around AHB strategy and reform. It is a single-sentence Bill, so there is not an awful lot to discuss in terms of its explicit content. However, given that it is related to the funding of AHBs and, potentially, local authorities, I want to make some general comments on how that funding is used in order to contribute to the wider debate, which I know the Minister and his officials are considering. This relates to the strategic review of the AHB sector and, ultimately, the new housing plan.”
“The only conclusion I can draw from this budget is that the Government's priority is big developers and big investors because they are the only people benefiting from the measures the Minister of State has just announced on the floor.”
“It was one that would have doubled investment in the delivery of social and affordable homes, activated the SME builder-developer sector with real supports, protected renters with a ban on rent increases and a refundable tax credit up to €2,500 a year, and introduced an emergency package of measures for people at risk of, or in, homelessness to prevent them from becoming homeless or to get them out of emergency accommodation more quickly. Of course, the Government ignored those alternatives. What that tells me is it is not prioritising housing or homelessness. It has been criticised yesterday and today by leading organisations fighting the scourge of homelessness in our society.”
“Over the next two years, over €500 million will be spent on apartments that are already under construction and already have buyers. That is not activation; that is pure stupidity. It is a waste of money that could be used to deliver genuinely affordable homes for working people. There are no supports for the struggling small- and medium-sized builder-developer sector to build more good-quality homes in every county in the country for working people to buy. In our alternative budget, Sinn Féin set out a different approach.”
“At a time of a growing affordability crisis and so many young people being forced to emigrate, it is simply incomprehensible. The Government's promise to progressively increase the renter's tax credit has been broken. That is no surprise, but the Government is about to introduce legislation to allow landlords to increase rents by even greater margins, which means whatever tax credit it gives renters will go straight into the pockets of landlords and they will be no better off. In fact, along with changes it has made to apartment design standards, the Government is saying to renters, from Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael's point of view, that all they are offering are smaller, darker and more expensive apartments into the future. The only new policy in this document from a housing point of view is a massive tax cut to apartment builders.”
“This is the tenth budget I have had the opportunity to respond to as the Sinn Féin spokesperson on housing. In every single year, the Minister for housing presents a budget and tells us it will address and improve the housing situation across the State. In the 12 months that follow, house prices, rents and homelessness rise, and social and affordable housing targets that are too low to begin with are not met. Of the ten budgets I have digested since first being elected to the Dáil, in respect of housing, this is by far the worst, There is no increase in social housing, affordable rental or affordable purchase targets, and no new measures to prevent singles and families from falling into homelessness. At a time of rising social housing need and homelessness, that is unforgivable.”
“It simply makes no sense for the State to provide this VAT exemption for apartments currently under construction if the LDA or AHBs, which are funded by the Department, are not benefiting from a very significant reduction in costs.”