SINN FÉIN HAS today published its affordable homes policy document which sets out how a two-bed starter home in Dublin can be delivered for around €300,000 or less for households below a certain income.
The document called: ‘Bringing Home Ownership Back Into Reach For Working People‘ also outlines how cheaper cost-rental prices of €1,000 per month or less can be delivered for households with a net income up to €66,000 in Dublin and €59,000 outside Dublin.
According to the party, the document, launched by party leader Mary Lou McDonald along with Housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin and Rural Development spokesperson Martin Kenny, is fully costed and detailed.
Speaking today, McDonald outlined how the affordable purchase housing scheme will be open to households with gross incomes up to €90,000.
Under the scheme prices will range from €250,000 to €300,000 depending on the size and location.
Sinn Féin has said the reason it would be able to deliver houses at this reduced cost is because they would be built on state-owned land with the state paying for all land related costs and retaining ownership of the land.
The party has said that buyers will have the same rights as private purchasers except at the point of sale they cannot sell the home on the private market.
Instead, houses will have to be sold within the affordable housing scheme.
“The idea of that is you guarantee that kind of second generation, third generation, fourth generation affordability, but there are two separate markets. One is the private market as we currently understand it, the other is the affordable purchase market, which sits alongside it,” Ó Broin explained today.
Purchasers withing this scheme will also have the right to pass the property on their children and subsequent generations, Sinn Féin has said.
Sinn Féin plans to build 50,000 “affordable homes” to buy and rent over five years (this is for people who earn too much to qualify for social housing). It also plans to deliver 75,000 social homes over the same period.
Today’s plan comes after McDonald caused controversy last year when she told The Irish Times in an interview what the average cost of a house in Dublin should cost.
She was heavily criticised on the issue by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with the parties demanding answers as to how Sinn Féin would deliver housing for less that €300,000 in Dublin.
McDonald later moved to clarify that she was speaking about the “affordable” cost of a house under a scheme her party plans to roll out if in government – the proposed scheme being launched today.
She said the €300,000 figure was “the affordable price” for a new scheme that Sinn Féin wants to design “for a particular cohort of people who earn too much to be on the housing list and get a council house… but too little to be able to afford to get a mortgage and to access housing”.
Ó Broin told reporters today that if you are delivering a high number of new homes it is going to reduce house prices in the market more broadly.
He said however, that this would be moderate and gradual and added that the impact would be “very difficult to predict”.
“Nobody can say what the longer term impacts are,” Ó Broin said.
Criticism
Responding to Sinn Féin’s proposals this afternoon, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien said the document “raises more questions than it answers”.
He also argued that it is an “exclusionary scheme” because of the household income caps.
“A Garda and a teacher on point five of their respective salary scales would not be eligible for apply for these homes. Unlike the Government schemes which contain no arbitrary salary caps,” O’Brien said.
Ahead of today’s launch, O’Brien said he has waited for months for Sinn Féin to provide any costed or detailed alternative housing plan.
He said there are a number of questions the party must address, such as whether the party still plans to abolish the Help-to-Buy grant, which the minister said has assisted more than 48,000 homebuyers with the deposit for their new home.
O’Brien has also called on Sinn Féin to clarify if it plans to scrap the vacant and derelict property refurbishment grants along with the First Home Scheme, and questioned if the party will impose a €400 tax on small landlords as set out in their alternative budget.
“What we do know is that half-baked policies and reckless remarks about decreasing house values create uncertainty and can damage housing supply by jeopardising investment in future homes,” said the minister.
During today’s press conference, Ó Broin was asked about the Minister’s interest in Sinn Féin’s plan. In response he said:
“Darragh should get on with his job, because the amount of time he has in that office is getting ever shorter.”
Cost Rental
Sinn Féin today also set out its plans to deliver 25,000 one, two and three bedroom homes to rent over a five year period.
Its cost rental scheme is intended for people whose incomes are above the threshold for social housing who need medium to long term rental.
Under this scheme, it said the income limit eligibility criteria would remain under €66,000 of net income in Dublin and €59,000 outside of Dublin.
Sinn Féin has said that all eligible households would be able to access cost rental schemes at or below 33% of their net disposable income.
It said this would involve seeking to bring cost rents down to an average of €1,000 per month and “if possible even lower”.
In September, the party plans to publish a more substantive policy document, which Sinn Féin is calling its alternative to the government’s Housing for All plan.
Previously, Sinn Féin has said it will phase out existing government housing schemes such as Help-to-Buy and the First Homes scheme.
On the local election campaign trail, McDonald told The Journal that it remains Sinn Féin’s plan to scrap the Help-to-Buy scheme, though she stated that there would be no “cliff-edge” for people, indicating that it would be phased out if Sinn Féin were to enter into government.
When asked today by The Journal how the party plans to support first time buyers to save for a deposit and at what point it plans to fully phase out both schemes, McDonald said that was not what today’s launch was about and that those questions would be answered by the party in September.
The Sinn Féin plan aims to deliver 300,000 new homes from 2025 to 2029, with 60,000 new homes delivered every single year. Of the 60,000 new homes a year, at least 25,000 will be social and affordable, the party pledges.
Today’s document comes shortly after the party launched a new party policy on immigration. McDonald acknowledged after a bruising local election result that the party had lost touch with some of its voters, while also stating that the party did not offer clarity to the public on some of its policies.
The launch of the two policy documents on housing and migration seek to remedy that, it is believed.
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