New Developer Led Housing Scheme must be scrapped

Seán Crowe TD has called on the government to scrap the Fianna Fáil developer scheme that will push up house prices and invest instead in real affordable homes to rent and to buy. Teachta Crowe said: “Sinn Féin are using a recent Dáil motion to call on the government to scrap Fianna Fáil’s latest scheme for developers and use the funding instead for the delivery of genuine affordable homes to rent and to buy.
 
“The scheme Fianna Fáil want to introduce was written by property developers for property developers and closely mirrors a similar scheme in place in Britain. “Evidence available on the British version of the scheme shows that it pushes up house prices and delivers homes where they are not needed. “The Fianna Fáil plan will not make homes more affordable and will saddle working people who need affordable housing with even more crippling debt. It certainly will not help a generation that has been locked out of homeownership due to the rising cost of buying a home.
 
“It is not just Sinn Féin that thinks that this scheme should be scrapped.  A group of councillors from Fine Gael wrote to the Minister for Housing urging him to scrap the Shared Equity Loan scheme as it risked a ‘return to failed housing policies of the Celtic Tiger era’. “The ESRI, the Central Bank, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, and the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform all have concerns that this plan may in fact increase the price of homes.
 
“All they are proposing to do is pump even more money into an already grossly inflated market. Developers will simply raise their prices to match and there will be no real benefit to first time buyers. This proposal will also impact negatively on those who are desperately seeking to sell and move, perhaps to a larger home to accommodate a growing family. “Sinn Féin has an alternative and fully costed plan that will deliver the genuinely affordable homes to rent and to buy that working people need. The Government’s plan will simply make that harder to achieve. “We cannot return to the same old Fianna Fáil developer led policies of the past. People deserve something better not more of the failed schemes of the past.”