Affordable Housing Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2021-06-04
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

However, my point is that the difference should be made up only up to the market price and not above it. As I said, there are two elements of this. The first is the agreement that is made - the agreement a council, for example, might have made with an AHB to say it is going to buy affordable houses at €300,000 each or whatever. Then there is the price made available to the purchaser, who we hope is an owner-occupier - that was another set of amendments but I have been reassured on that - and he or she might be paying €200,000, for example. My question is, if the market has dropped such that those houses are now available on the market at say €250,000, should the local authority still be paying €300,000 for houses that can be bought next door for €250,000? Should the local authority be paying a top-up of €100,000 or should it only be paying a top-up of €50,000? That is the question.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2021-06-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:22+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-06-04