Richard Boyd Barrett: Dun Laoghaire homes out of reach
Richard Boyd Barrett challenges the Taoiseach over soaring house prices in Dun Laoghaire and the failure of affordable housing schemes to apply. He highlights that average prices are around €680,000, the First Home Scheme cap is €500,000, and LIHA conditions were abandoned.
Richard Boyd Barrett asks the Taoiseach how ordinary workers in Dun Laoghaire can afford housing when average prices are €680,000 and the First Home Scheme limit of €500,000 excludes much of the market. He presses for concrete action to deliver affordable homes in high-price areas.
Boyd Barrett points to LIHAF funding given in the millions to developers, originally meant to be conditional on returning homes priced at €300,000 or less. He says that condition was abandoned and gives Cherrywood as an example where promised affordable homes did not materialise and new builds are priced at €600,000-€700,000.
The Taoiseach acknowledged the issue and outlined government measures: state investment in housing, help-to-buy supports, cost rental programmes, the Shangana development and a recent project on Nais Road expected to deliver a mix including affordable and cost rental units.
Boyd Barrett frames the debate around access: nurses, teachers, council workers and other ordinary workers do not earn more because they live in Dun Laoghaire, yet current schemes often exclude them. The exchange raises questions about how to restore affordability, enforce conditions on developer funding and scale up both public and private building to meet demand.
Main exchange
Richard Boyd Barrett asks the Taoiseach how ordinary workers in Dun Laoghaire can afford housing when average prices are €680,000 and the First Home Scheme limit of €500,000 excludes much of the market. He presses for concrete action to deliver affordable homes in high-price areas.
Developer funding and LIHAF
Boyd Barrett points to LIHAF funding given in the millions to developers, originally meant to be conditional on returning homes priced at €300,000 or less. He says that condition was abandoned and gives Cherrywood as an example where promised affordable homes did not materialise and new builds are priced at €600,000-€700,000.
Government response and projects cited
The Taoiseach acknowledged the issue and outlined government measures: state investment in housing, help-to-buy supports, cost rental programmes, the Shangana development and a recent project on Nais Road expected to deliver a mix including affordable and cost rental units.
Consequences for workers and next steps
Boyd Barrett frames the debate around access: nurses, teachers, council workers and other ordinary workers do not earn more because they live in Dun Laoghaire, yet current schemes often exclude them. The exchange raises questions about how to restore affordability, enforce conditions on developer funding and scale up both public and private building to meet demand.
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Transcript
Taoiseach, you mentioned how housing is in the strategy to focus on housing and indeed on the delivery of affordable housing. Now in my area average house prices are now 680,000 euro. The first home scheme for affordable housing puts a limit of 500,000. In other words you can't, if it's a new build can't be more than 500,000. So your affordable housing schemes simply do not apply in Dun Laoghaire. Now ordinary workers in Dun Laoghaire don't earn more because they earn in Dun Laoghaire. If you're a nurse or a teacher or a bank worker or a council worker you don't earn more because you live in Dun Laoghaire. But your schemes are completely non-applicable and that's true in many parts of Dublin by the way, our house prices are way in excess. So what are you going to do? The LIHA funding which was given out in the millions to developers was supposed to be conditional on giving back houses of 300,000 euro or less when it was originally came out. That was abandoned. So in places like Cherrywood now houses are where there was 15 million in LIHA funding given out on the condition there was supposed to be some affordable housing. We got no affordable housing and the houses are coming in at six and seven hundred thousand euro. How are ordinary workers supposed to pay for houses at that price and what are you going to do to deliver them some affordable housing because your schemes don't apply in huge swathes of Dublin. Deputy Boyd Barrett raised the very high house prices in Dun Laoghaire in his constituency. I acknowledge that. It is a very significant issue. We have in an unprecedented way provided a lot of state investment in housing and particularly in certain schemes not just first home scheme in terms of the help to buy scheme which has helped a lot of people to be able to buy homes and also a cost rental. We needed to do more. I mean Shangana was the first major sort of development by the LDA which had a broad mix of housing from social to affordable and it's accelerating its work LDAs. Yesterday I was at an investment where 550 odd houses will be provided on the Nais road. Again a mix of housing which will be affordable to people and which involves cost rental and also but the most important way to deal with housing overall is to get supply up and that means both public sector investment at unprecedented levels which we are doing but it also means a substantial private sector investment also to get to the levels of house building that are required to deal with population growth and the needs of young people to be able to get houses that they can afford.