Offering €20 million to local authorities to enter into long term leasing arrangements with developers is another example of Fianna Fáil using the “public purse as a means of bailing out their developer buddies”.
This is the view of Labour Cllr Billy Cameron who has condemned the Minister of State at the Dept of Environment Michael Finneran on his recent proposal of providing funds to any local authority which enters such arrangements with developers.
The arrangement would see local authorities entering into long term leasing arrangements of housing units with developers, ranging from 10 to 20 years. The council would then rent these units out to people on the housing waiting lists.
However Cllr Cameron said that when the 10 or 20 year lease terminates the council “again have to house the tenant”.
“The State will have spent €20m with nothing to show for it,” he said. “The only winner is the developer or landlord who walks away with the accumulated rent, and the tax-payers of the country will have seen €20m of their money disappear down yet another black hole.”
Cllr Cameron said that with property prices at their lowest, local authorities have an opportunity to purchase units and make them available to families and single people who have waited seven or eight years on housing waiting lists.
“This would be prudent spending and provide public assets which would remain in the hands of local authorities and not in the hands of developers,” he said. “We have to look at long term solutions to the housing crisis and not stopgap measures of feathering the nests of those who landed us in the financial crisis we are presently experiencing
