Half a million euro for a so-called affordable home.

How is bringing down new house prices dangerous? In what world?

That is failing.

A plan that is failing. The facts speak for themselves.

I am happy to answer all of those questions if the Minister stays until the end of the debate for the first time in five years.

I am happy to answer if the Minister stays until the end for once. Take your job seriously.

Stay until the end and listen to everybody, Minister, for the first time in five years.

Sinn Féin's alternative housing plan, A Home of Your Own, sets out what would be the most ambitious public housing programme in the history of the State. We would deliver more than twice the number of social homes that have been delivered in the past five years by this Government and about ten times as many affordable homes. The big difference is that those homes would be genuinely affordable. I appreciate that the Minister of State is reading from a script prepared for him by officials from another Department. How…

I am just waiting for the clock, unless the Ceann Comhairle wants to give me ten minutes to ask the question.

Can the Minister explain why he is charging people purchasing homes under his so-called affordable purchase scheme more than the actual cost of delivering those homes? As he knows, he uses open market value rather than full or all-in development costs. This means that if people want to own their homes outright, they do not just have to pay the full cost that the local authority or Land Development Agency, LDA, had to pay to deliver them, in some cases they are obliged to pay between €50,000 and €80,000 more. Why is…

Of course the Minister failed to answer the question. It could be that he does not understand the details of his scheme or it could be he does not want people to know how it works. Let me remind him. For one of the three-bed terraced units in Shanganagh Castle - a scheme he launched so enthusiastically very recently - the full cost if the purchaser wants to own the home outright is €550,000. It did not cost the LDA €550,000 to deliver that home. In fact, it probably cost about €100,000 less, particularly given that…

Of course, the big difference between our scheme and the Government's scheme is that in ours, the purchaser pays €250,000 and owns the home outright. Under the Government’s scheme, they will pay €550,000. The Minister still has not answered my simple question, which I will put again as plainly as I can. I suspect he knows the answer but does not have the courage to state it on the Dáil record. Why is the Government charging a family to purchase a three-bedroom unit at Shanganagh Castle €550,000 to own the home outr…

It is the Minister's unwillingness to answer the question that is amusing.

Of course, the Minister does not know what the answer was because he was not here, but-----

-----I am happy to discuss it with him again. I hope I might have a better chance of getting a straight answer to this straight question. There are three cost-rental schemes, at Shanganagh Castle, O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road. The contracts for all those cost-rental schemes have been signed. Will the Minister put on the record of the Dáil what the cost of renting a one-, two- and three-bedroom unit will be in each of those three developments? That will allow the public to decide whether they are afforda…

It is remarkable that the Minister said the rents have not yet been finalised, because they have been. We know that because John Coleman from the Land Development Agency told an Oireachtas committee that. Contrary to the information the Minister has put before us, we do know that the rents for a one-bedroom unit in Shanganagh will be €1,250 a month-----

-----but we also know that rents for a two-bedroom unit will be €1,520 and that those for a three-bedroom unit will be €1,700. That is the single highest cost rent for a three-bedroom or a two-bedroom unit delivered to date. I also understand that Dublin City Council has signed the contracts with Tuath and Clúid for the cost rentals in O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road. While the one-bedroom units will come in very similar to those in Shanganagh, the two-bedroom units will be more expensive, in excess of €1,…

It is simply factually incorrect for the Minister to come to the Dáil and say the rents on those three projects have not been finalised. They have been. The legal contracts have been signed and the Minister knows that, and people can judge that for themselves. I am a strong advocate of cost rental - I have argued for it for more than two decades - and the Minister knows I supported the legislation to facilitate it even though the Government has taken a very good concept and mangled it beyond recognition, by which I…

The contracts have been signed.

The LDA has published the information.