Fine Gael has pledged to spend €10 billion of Apple tax money on housing as Simon Harris said first-time buyer schemes were red line issues for the party.
The party is committing to deliver 303,000 homes over the next six years at a cost of €40 billion, averaging at around 50,000 homes a year.
The Fine Gael leader said the party would look to use “at least €10 billion” of the €14 billion of back taxes from Apple “to help build the homes we need”.
“You can’t just say housing is the number one priority and not significantly try to turbo charge further the budget for it,” he said as he launched his party’s housing policy in Dublin.
The Fine Gael housing policy also commits to extending two grants for first-time buyers: the Help-to-Buy grant will be increased from a maximum of €30,000 to €40,000 until 2030; and the First Home Scheme will be extended to second-hand homes for five more years.
“We will not go into government in any scenario where the rug is pulled from under first-time buyers – not doing it, not interested, won’t be happening,” Mr Harris said, adding that retaining these supports would be “a red line for Fine Gael”.
Asked why people should believe what Fine Gael promises to do on housing, Mr Harris said: “Because we’re telling the truth, because people of Ireland know and they’re not fooled by anybody who tries to rewrite history or start history as a renewed point in time.”
He said that when Fine Gael first went into government in 2011, the banks “couldn’t lend a bob”, there were ghost states “all over the place” and there were people in his constituency office “in tears about mortgage arrears and losing their homes” and “we had to build that back from scratch”.
The Fine Gael sign stuck to the lectern where Mr Harris was standing fell off as he said “housing is the biggest priority” and there was a “credible way forward”.
“What you can’t do is pretend you can just flick a switch and go dramatically up. What you can do is show people, with a €40 billion plan, put your money where your mouth is, you can now really scale up the ambition further.
“The other reason I think people can genuinely believe there is progress on housing is the fact that right across this country, people are seeing the cranes, people are seeing the new housing estates, I’m canvassing in so many new homes in my constituency that weren’t there in the last general election.”
Asked whether the extension of the two schemes for first-time buyers would add to house prices, minister Paschal Donohoe said the best way to stop homes from becoming more unaffordable was to build more homes.
He said Help-to-Buy would still only be available for new-builds, and the increase in the threshold was smaller than the one made in 2020, from €20,000 to €30,000.
He also said there are caps in the first home scheme, “thereby minimising the effect that that change could have in the inflation of new or second-home properties”.
