Housing clawback move designed to help developers

ACCORDING to your report (June 2), the Government is considering scrapping the clawback clause which requires someone who has bought a house under the affordable housing scheme to give a percentage of any profit back to the council if the house is sold within 20 years of purchase.

Scrapping this clawback is a bad idea and a misuse of taxpayers’ money.

In my opinion, the primary objective of the affordable scheme (paid for by the taxpayer) was not so much to provide homes for those who needed them, but rather to support the so-called housing market, the developers and bankers who gained from it.

If it wasn’t aimed to support developers, why were local authorities encouraged to buy up thousands of houses from them at premium rates? Houses that they are now stuck with, apparently. Doing away with the 20-year clause is all about correcting this huge error and trying to support developers who can’t palm off any more of their overpriced houses to local authorities. If the

Government was concerned to do its duty to ensure everyone in the country had a home (a human right under the UN Declaration of Human Rights), then instead of stuffing the pockets of developers and bankers by providing lax regulation, huge tax breaks and sympathetic planning laws that allowed them to fill the country with flats that were unsuitable for families, they would have built council house to provide homes for the 65,000 people on waiting lists across the country.

Instead, while the developers, bankers and property speculators were well looked after, those languishing on the council house waiting lists were effectively abandoned (And, by the way, which political party is demanding that this injustice is ended immediately?).

If the Government removes the 20 year clause the purchaser who has already gained by having the price of the house subsidised by the taxpayer will be able to make a profit at the taxpayers’ expense if prices rise and they sell the property. If the Government wants to get the 4,000 or so affordable houses it bought off its hands, then it should instruct local authorities to use most of those suitable as council houses and let them to those on the waiting lists. This way the taxpayer would gain from the rental income on these houses. However, even if all the 4,000 unsold houses were suitable, there would still be more than 60,000 on the social housing lists.

The Government should promote the building of council houses straight away to satisfy this huge need.

There will be no place for developers here, no huge bonuses for bankers, but it will provide thousands of jobs in the building and allied businesses.

Over the long term building council houses will also help to keep prices low and mortgages available. Taxpayer subsidisation of developers and the housing market through tax breaks and affordable housing schemes should end forthwith.

Brian Abbott

Glencairn

Bishopstown Road

Cork