First time buyers will lost up to €100,000 in Government support under Sinn Féin plans to scrap the Help to Buy scheme, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has claimed.
The Help to Buy (HTB) Scheme assists first-time buyers to purchase a newly-built apartment or house, including self-build homes.
Mr O’Brien and Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin disagreed on the effectiveness of the Help to Buy scheme on the RTÉ television programme Up Front with Katie Hannon on Monday night.
Mr Ó Broin said the abolition of Help to Buy would be phased in over the lifetime of the next Government under Sinn Féin plans. He said Sinn Féin would introduce a scheme to provide 60,000 affordable homes and dramatically increase the number of private homes being built.
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Mr Ó Broin also clashed with Minister for Public Expenditure and reform Paschal Donohoe over whether Sinn Féin’s plans for home ownership would be supported by the banks.
Mr Donohoe said “in order for plan ideas to be delivered, you would need banks be willing to lend”. He asked Mr Ó Broin to say “where is the commitment that the banks will lend to your plan”.
Mr Ó Broin responded: “the Government are losing the debate when they start actually misrepresenting and lying about the opposition’s proposal.” He said “the banks do not give memorandums of understanding to Opposition parties. Folks, please, let’s be real. They sit down with governments and they reach agreements. I have met them twice.
“And the answer is the Banking and Payments Federation, after two meetings with us, have said very clearly and publicly they will lend for mortgages for this scheme on the same basis as any other Government scheme.”
Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit said “the problem is, what you’re doing is you’re just throwing 100,000 quid into the pocket of the developer. Surely the better way to use the subsidy – and we do need the subsidy – is to drive it down, drive down the price. So the actual price is affordable for people.”
“And I think the only way you can do that is if you take out the profit motive and build housing, a lot of it on a not for profit basis,” he said.
Labour Leader Ivana Bacik also said the Help to Buy scheme was pushing up the price of houses.
“We would phase out the Government’s Help to Buy scheme, which has indeed knocked up the price of houses. It has an inflationary effect. And furthermore, as the Central Bank has told us, it particularly supports those who are already better off,” she said.
Social Democrats election candidate Rory Hearne said “there’s half a million adults stuck living in their childhood bedrooms.
“It’s really important to say, the majority of homes being built in our capital city are built-to-rent investor fund homes that nobody can buy. Last year, there were over 6,000 apartments bought by investor funds. There were less than 800 bought by individuals.”
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