Affordable housing scheme a “farce” says O’Callaghan

Long-anticipated affordable purchase housing at Oscar Traynor Woods in north Dublin has finally been advertised for sale – but the prices are anything but affordable, according to Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan.

The Dublin Bay North TD said “first time buyers will be paying up to €475,000 for a so-called affordable three-bedroom home in this development. This means that only someone earning over €100,000 is eligible for affordable housing.”

“The Government have taken a brilliant idea with huge potential and managed to turn it into farce,” he remarked.

“The Affordable Housing Act, which legislated for this new form of housing, made the crucial mistake of defining affordability as a discount on the full market price – as the market price has continued to spiral out of control, so too has the price of so-called affordable homes.”

He said that the results are now playing out in real-time, which has seen supposedly affordable housing on State-owned land being sold for nearly €500,000.

“High quality three-bed affordable purchase homes in Dublin have recently been built by Ó Cualann, an Approved Housing Body, and sold at a price of €295,450; this is the model the Government should be investing in – genuinely affordable homes built on State lands on a not-for-profit basis.”

He said the situation in Oscar Traynor Woods, between Coolock and Santry, is just the “latest example of a Government scheme that’s good for political spin but totally ineffective and wasteful in the real world.”
“The proper way to deliver affordable homes is staring them in the face – they need to wake up and act.”

Local Sinn Féin councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha said the houses “are o be sold at prices which cannot be described in any way as affordable.”

“This is in clear breach of the commitments given at the time of the sale of this formerly public land that homes would be affordable and that this scheme would offer to working people the opportunity to purchase homes denied to them in the open market. “

 “Dublin City Councillors had voted for a scheme with real affordability and which retained the site as public land. This was vetoed by Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien for his own flawed scheme, involving the sale of public land, and now fully exposed as a sham. The Government is forcing the Council to implement a scheme that makes a mockery of affordability. “

 He said that Dublin City Council are seeking a meeting with the Minister for Housing, saying that this issue “Raises fundamental questions about the Government’s affordable housing policy.”