Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said that “zero percent” of people have any confidence in the ability of Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil to address the housing crisis.
In an interview with the Pat Kenny show on Newstalk, Deputy McDonald said that homeownership for the under forties had “literally collapsed” under the watch of the present Government.
“The price for a first time buyer of a new home in the Dublin area over the last five years has gone up by €125,000. The state wide figure is €90,000. The scale of failure is absolutely breathtaking.
Sinn Féin by contrast is the party of homeownership and first-time buyers. What we want do is scale up the delivery of homes. We want prices to be affordable. We are proposing to do away with stamp duty for first time buyers up to a value of 450,000.”
Deputy McDonald said that many people she has spoken to have recoiled at the prospect of having another Fianna Fáil led housing ministry.
"I have met countless people who, you talk about a chilling effect, are chilled at the idea that Fianna Fáil would say out loud that they should have the housing ministry again.
"I think people looked at that prospect and said ‘There is no way on God’s green earth that we can tolerate or endure another five years of failure from Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.”
Deputy McDonald also said that her party would phase out the Help to Buy scheme.
"As we ramp up supply and as we deal with the affordability issue, we are going to phase that scheme out.”
Deputy McDonald stressed that we need to redirect all efforts of the construction sector to building homes.
"The construction workforce is a little bit higher than it was in the Celtic Tiger - it's still a very substantial workforce. We need to redirect all of its efforts into the things that we need to build. I don't think we need more 'aparthotels' - I think we need more homes built.
Deputy McDonald said that Sinn Féin would like to repurchase the Land Development Agency and "make it fit for purpose".
"To deliver the scale of housing that is required, it does mean that you have to have that pipeline of available land, and that ought to be [the Land Development Agency's] task - they should not be the builders of homes,” she said.
Deputy McDonald also spoke of Sinn Féin's proposal to introduce a stamp duty exemption for first-time buyers on properties valued at €450,000 or less. She said that every penny counts when it comes to purchasing a home.
"When you’re putting your sums together to buy your first home, there are no trivial sums," she said.
