Shared equity and housing prices
Deputy Doherty warns a shared equity scheme will inflate house prices and worsen access to home ownership. The Minister says market interventions must be carefully targeted and argues cost-rental solutions are the better response, though the exchange is cut short for time.
The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is hell-bent on introducing a shared equity scheme that will only push up house prices. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, knows, as we all do, that a whole generation is locked out of home ownership because of the prices that are being charged for houses. It is not just Sinn Féin that is saying the scheme will push up house prices. The most senior official in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is saying the property industry is lobbying for this because it will push up house prices and line the pockets of developers. It is the developers who lobbied for this scheme. The reason we know that is that they lobbied Sinn Féin as well. We told them to sling their hook because we knew it would lock in high prices. However, they went over to Government Buildings and got a friendly ear in the form of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. It is not just Sinn Féin and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, but the Central Bank and the ESRI are all singing the same tune, that this policy is reckless and will push up house prices and it should not happen.
The Minister, Deputy Ryan, as leader of the Green Party, was very clear. He committed to pushing back on inflationary demand-side interventions in the home purchase market. The Green Party states in its policy document that these are essentially social transfers from taxpayers to developers and builders which are paid through increased house prices. How can the Minister reconcile that the Green Party is rolling over and allowing this Minister to introduce a policy that everybody knows is going to increase house prices?
Comment on this
The warnings are there for the Minister and his party to see.
Comment on this
Deputy Doherty is right. We have to make sure this does not push up prices. That is why the ESRI rightly stated at the Oireachtas joint committee that the targeting of any market intervention is critical and that we must make sure we get this right. The key to getting it right is also what this Government is delivering after a lot of talk and promises over the years when nothing was ever delivered. It is the development of cost-rental solutions, which I believe should be central to addressing the housing crisis. The key benefit of these solutions as an intervention is that they intervene in the market to bring prices down. This approach is not developer-led; the housing is still retained in public ownership and it is social housing done in a new way. It is open to everyone. The shared equity scheme is being discussed and advanced with care to make sure it does not create further market pressures and price rises.
Comment on this
We are progressing and have advanced cost-rental solutions like the one in Shanganagh on the way to Bray.
Comment on this
I believe that will be the mainstay of the-----