Sinn Féin believes that everybody should have the right to secure, adequate and affordable homes.

We are committed to bringing home ownership back within reach for working people.

Whether you own your own home, rent in the private rental sector, or live in public housing, your home should be secure, adequate, and affordable.

A secure home is one where you feel safe, which is built to proper standards and where you have long term security of tenure.

An adequate home is one that meets your needs in terms of size, space, light, accessibility, proximity to work and support networks and culture.

An affordable home is one where your housing costs are a reasonable percentage of your disposable income.

A balanced housing system.

Sinn Féin’s long term objective is to see the housing system rebalanced with a greater emphasis on not-for-profit public housing to meet social and affordable need. At present the housing system in the State is overly weighted to the private market, with 84% of all housing ‘private for profit’, (66% owner occupier and 18% private rental) and just 10% constituting social housing.

This would mean having a long-term objective of increasing the portion of non-market public housing to 30% of the housing system. In Government, we would also rebalance private housing output in favour of owner occupation with the aim of halting the decline in home ownership. Home ownership would rise through the increased provision of private purchase and affordable homes for purchase. 

There would also be an increase in the volume of social and affordable cost rental homes. In turn the private rental sector would become a smaller portion of the overall housing system. Such a distribution would not only ensure the housing system properly meets people’s housing need. It would also ensure the system is better able to absorb cyclical disruption from the private market. The table below outlines how the provision of housing has changed in the State.

Our vision for Dublin includes:

• Creating a single Public Housing Fund. 

• Proactively increasing the use of new building technologies to deliver low carbon building systems.

• Seeking to expand the social rental and cost rental tenant-in-situ schemes. 

• Immediately ending the policy of long-term leasing for social housing delivery. 

• Developing a pilot programme in conjunction with Local Authorities and the Arts Council to deliver public housing with appropriate studio space for cultural workers. 

• Supporting the four Dublin Local Authorities to establish a publicly owned building contractor. 

• Ensuring that tenants in Local Authority and Approved Housing Bodies estates are provided with the opportunity to become active participants in the decisions about the management and development of the communities in which they live. 

• Agreeing an accelerated multi annual inner city flax complex regeneration programme. The current budget of €50m would be doubled to €100m.

• Reducing the use of private sector rent subsidies to meet social housing need.

• Introducing a Social Housing (Reform) General Scheme with the intention of having it passed and enacted within 12 months.

• Selling homes to eligible purchasers at prices between €250,000 and €300,000 depending on size and location.

• Introducing a three-year emergency ban on rent increases for all existing and new tenancies.

• Introducing a series of reforms that would activate the private residential development sector to fund and build 175,000 private homes to buy and rent over five years.

• Introducing reforms in the private rental sector, supporting the increased professionalisation of the sector while strengthening security of tenure, enforcing minimum standards, and improving affordability.

• Ensuring that residential zoning should be made on a use it or lose it basis.

• Introducing a Compact Development Site Support Programme for private residential developers who want to develop higher density mixed use schemes on inner urban sites where compact growth is desirable.

• Introducing a stamp duty exemption for First Time Buyers, so that if you are buying your first home you will pay no stamp duty on a property valued at €450,000 or less.

• Providing tenants with adequate, secure and affordable homes while enabling landlords to make a reasonable return on their investment.

• Strengthening the building control and building product surveillance functions in Local Authorities.

• Putting in place a world class building control and building products surveillance regime.

• Introducing a comprehensive redress scheme for those living with building defects. Sinn Féin has committed to providing 100% redress to all those homeowners living with Celtic Tiger era building defects and defective block homes.

• Creating a single Building Defects Resolution Board.

• Establishing a Building Control and Consumer Protection Agency.

• Ending long term homelessness and the need to sleep rough.

• Funding a dedicated stream of age friendly housing to meet the needs of 10,000 households in social and affordable housing.

• Championing high quality architecture, particularly in the delivery of our public housing programme.

• Building a planning system that enables the public, semi-state and private development sectors to meet the social, economic and environmental needs of our society.

• Establishing an Active Land Management Agency, focused solely on the issue of strategic management of public land and where appropriate intervening in the private land market to ensure an adequate supply of public land.

• Establishing, as a matter of urgency, an on-line platform detailing all vacant and derelict properties in the state.