TWO bedroom houses in a new Dublin estate will cost €334,000 under the affordable home scheme – but Sinn Fein say the State will retain a €100,000 stake in the property.
Taoiseach Simon Harris and Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien today officially opened the 600-home Shanganagh estate in Dublin that was built by the Land Development Agency.
The first phase of the development will include 51 affordable purchase homes, 195 cost rental apartments and 35 social apartments.
A two-bed affordable house in the estate will cost €334,000 while a three-bed house will cost €388,000, but the State will retain a stake in the property which the new owner can buy out at any point in the future.
The cost rental apartments which are set by the State at a lower rate than the market will cost people nearly €1,200 per month.
Sinn Fein’s housing spokesman Eoin O’Broin raged: “What the press release deliberately leaves out is that the purchase homes will come with a hidden €100,000 state equity stake which must be paid back if you want to own the home outright.”
He added: “If you don’t buy out the equity your children will have to pay it when they inherit the home.
“Buyers beware, is neither home ownership nor affordable housing. It is overpriced market housing that is unaffordable to the vast majority of working people.
“It confirms once again that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are neither willing nor able to deliver affordable homes.
“Only a Sinn Féin government implementing Sinn Féin’s affordable homes plan can deliver tens of thousands of genuinely affordable homes, bringing home ownership back into reach of working people.”
Taoiseach Harris defended the affordability of the homes at the launch today and slammed Sinn Fein’s alternative housing plan which will remove supports currently in place such as the First Home scheme and the Help to Buy scheme.
He said: “What have Sinn Fein got against civil servants who are trying to get on the property ladder that they want to pull the rug from under them in relation to the supports we have available.
“Under their very interesting – to put I mildly and diplomatically – housing plan that confuses and boggles the mind in terms of whether you can even access a loan to buy the house, but leaving that aside they would actually once you hit a threshold of €90,000 you are not eligible for the funding.
“So if you have somebody who maybe an experienced garda or nurse married to the other you wouldn’t qualify for any support.
“Under our scheme you would qualify for tens of thousands of euros of support.”
Sinn Fein’s housing plan proposes a new form of housing where the State builds the homes on State land and sells them for an affordable price however, the State remains ownership of the land the home is built on.
