The Social Democrats will this week propose the setting up of a new State savings scheme to fund the accelerated delivery of affordable homes.<\/p>\n
Deputy Rory Hearne, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on housing, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder our proposal, the government would establish a Homes for Ireland Savings Account, similar to the Livret A model in France. This is an innovative way of offering an incentivised savings scheme for Irish savers, while opening up a new source of domestic private financing for home building in Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than chasing unreliable global institutional funds to build unaffordable rental homes, removing rent caps or giving more tax breaks to developers, here is a mechanism to provide additional sourcing of private finance that can deliver affordable housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis money could be used by the State towards the cost of building 50,000 affordable purchase and 25,000 cost rent rental homes over the next five years. The full potential of local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) and SME builders should be realised to deliver on these targets.<\/p>\n
\u201cFunds raised through this savings scheme would be channelled through Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI) and the Housing Finance Agency (HFA), and the money could be managed in a manner that keeps loans off the public books.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis scheme would be attractive to savers, with favourable interest rates and no DIRT tax applied to these accounts. It would represent a win-win for both savers and the State.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are also a number of potentially significant European Union (EU) funding streams that could be used to support the development of additional homes in this country, such as Invest EU, ESF+, ERDF and Horizon Europe. To date, however, Ireland has not sufficiently accessed these funds or allocated them to supporting the development of the national housing stock.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need new ways to fund housing to make a difference to the lives of a generation locked out of homeownership and denied affordable rental homes.\u201d<\/p>\n