Seanad report: Stating her belief that affordable housing was becoming the new "brown envelope", Joanna Tuffy (Lab) said developers could get land rezoned and so keep up the speculative approach to the housing market and land prices.
Prices of €300,000 were being charged for affordable homes. Five hundred units were being offered for sale by the Affordable Homes Partnership. To apply for one of them, an applicant must earn a minimum of €45,000. This meant many professionals who should be key members of the community could not afford such homes. "I think the thing has become a bit of a joke," she said.
Ms Tuffy said the partnership had asked developers to submit proposals for unzoned land so they could get it rezoned in return for so-called affordable housing. This meant that developers could buy high-amenity lands on the cheap and get them rezoned and make "hundreds of millions on their investment. I think that's an absolute scandal".
The report of the all-party committee on the price of housing land should be implemented as a matter of urgency, she added.
David Norris (Ind) said affordable housing was a farce. "My friends in Fianna Fáil should be very careful about getting too chummy with the building and construction trade. This is a very dangerous area. They got their fingers burnt in it before. They would want to be careful it doesn't happen again."
Liam Fitzgerald (FF) said he was sympathetic to Ms Tuffy's sentiments. He believed the Land Commission should be reinvented and enabled to acquire land through compulsory purchase orders so that land could be rezoned by the State and offered in lots by tender to builders.
House leader Mary O'Rourke said "affordable houses" was becoming a derisory term because they were not affordable. She believed they should hold a debate on the matter.
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Maurice Hayes (Ind) said he believed an administrative instruction could be given directing that crime victims be informed of the impending release of perpetrators. Saying he was moved by the concern of Labhras Ó Murchú (FF) about the experience of the family of a murdered man, Dr Hayes said some years ago his wife had the same experience and it was "enormously harrowing". Brian Hayes, Fine Gael leader in the House, urged the Government to allow the Prison Service or members of the Garda to inform victims or their families when a release was imminent.
Sheila Terry (FG) said they had heard recently about someone who abused children for many years and who was about to be released without any of his victims being informed. The victims of serious crime were the people they should be most concerned about and legislation should be in place to ensure they were told when wrongdoers were to be let out of jail.
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Paying tribute to Gda Brian Kelleher and fireman Michael Liston, who were killed while dealing with a traffic accident in Co Limerick early last Sunday, Terry Leyden (FF) said the House should recognise the unselfish manner in which they had carried out their work.