More than €6bn hole in Sinn Féin affordable housing plan, claims Fianna Fáil

Fianna Fáil has accused Sinn Féin of having a €6.1 billion hole in its affordable housing plan with FF Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien claiming it would put taxpayers’ money at risk.
Sinn Féin has pledged to deliver affordable housing for eligible purchasers at prices between €250,000 and €300,000.
The State would retain ownership of the land upon which the homes are built.
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According to Sinn Féin, separating the cost of land and site servicing from the cost of building the home will bring prices down.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have questioned whether lenders will provide mortgages to people buying homes when they do not own the land.
Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin has previously said his party is “absolutely confident” its scheme will meet the banks’ requirements.
On Monday Mr O’Brien criticised the proposals: “I actually think it’s highly dangerous that Sinn Féin are promising people an illusion of home ownership by putting billions of euro of taxpayers’ money at risk.”
He raised a scenario where the homeowner defaults on their mortgage and said “Sinn Féin’s preference is to step in and buy out a mortgage if someone defaults … With 25,000 such homes promised and an average mortgage on each expected to be around €247,500 Sinn Féin are effectively going to guarantee 6.1 billion euro worth of mortgages.”
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He said “the banks have not confirmed that they will lend under this Sinn Féin scheme, that they know they won’t be able to sell their home on the open market if they wanted to, that they know their taxes will be used to guarantee someone else’s mortgage”.
Mr O’Brien claimed that Sinn Féin is proposing “a two-tier mortgage system”.
Mr Ó Broin responded, saying the Fianna Fáil TD’s “claim that the State would have to guarantee all of these mortgages and would purchase all properties where there was a default is complete and utter nonsense. There is no such guarantee under our scheme.”
Responding to Mr O’Brien, Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the Fianna Fáil TD “really likes talking about Sinn Féin because he has nothing to talk about in relation to himself”. He said the Government’s track record was record homelessness, house prices that were never higher, and how rents are “completely out of control” and dwindling homeownership rates.
He said the Government housing targets were not even equal to what the Housing Commission had suggested would be needed to address the crisis. “So, I don’t take what Darragh has said very seriously.”
Fianna Fáil is promising to extend and expand the outgoing Government’s affordable housing initiative, the First Home Scheme (FHS). Under the shared equity scheme, the government and participating banks pay up to 30 per cent of the cost of the new home in return for a stake in it.
Sinn Féin is critical of the equity stake in the FHS and has said it would end that scheme.