Vivienne Clarke
Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has acknowledged that €600,000 was not an affordable price for a home.
While he could not comment on specific planning proposals, the Minister told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show that when asked if he believed €2660,000 was affordable, his response was “I don’t, it’s not.”
Concern had been expressed after a council official said that affordable homes in the Poolbeg area of Dublin could cost as much as €600,000 per unit.
Mr O'Brien said that new legislation would make homes more affordable, but “affordable” had never been envisaged to be as much as €600,000.
The Minister said he wanted individuals and couples to be able to buy homes at an affordable rate. “We’re going to be able to do that with the legislation put in place, backed with the finance that will come forward in the Housing for All plan.”
Finalising details
Some details – “about four to five percent” – remained to be finalised, he said.
“I want to be able to publish the best plan we can. There’s a small bit of work to be done on vacancy - about how we can use the stock that’s out there that remains empty.
"Some things we’ve only just recently agreed on, like the Fair Deal proposals about homes where people are in long-term care facilities. Should they decide that they’d be able to rent out those homes or indeed sell their homes?”
People availing of the Fair Deal scheme could already rent their property to family members, he explained, but the Government wanted to extend that further to give the person and their family more choice. There were 9,300 properties involved in the Fair Deal scheme, he added.
