Speaking at the Social Democrats’ online National Conference today, Housing spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan TD said:
“The Minister for Housing must scrap his ill-thought-out proposals to introduce shared equity loans. These loans, which were lobbied for by developers, will lead to house price inflation. Senior officials in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the ESRI and the Central Bank have all warned against them.
“The experience in the UK is that shared equity loans were availed of mainly by people who were already able to afford to buy their homes. This resulted in first time buyers paying a premium for their homes and significantly boosted the profits of large developers.
“I am calling on the Minister for Housing to scrap these proposals and to instead invest the €75m allocated for shared equity loans this year into the services sites fund to support the direct build of affordable homes. This would be much better value for money and deliver more badly needed affordable homes.
“We do not need measures that will inflate home prices, subsidise developers and return us to the failed policies of the Celtic Tiger era.”
February 27, 2021