A series of questions have been raised over the Croí Cónaithe (Living Heart) Cities fund.

Labour representative Rebecca Moynihan has criticised the fund for its lack of serious conditions on affordability for renters or home buyers.

Senator Moynihan said: "The Government is repeating the same mistakes of the past by massively funding the private sector to deliver on housing while being resistant and unwilling to get building seriously on state owned land. There needs to be massive State intervention to build homes directly. We need to simplify the process for local authorities and give them the funding they need to build homes. The capital expenditure is down 53% on last year when we were in the middle of a Covid shut down. We need answers as to why the state is not funding direct build projects and instead giving these untested grants to developers.

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"We all know apartment costs are a big problem but land costs and tax costs within it are a major contributing factor to lack of affordability for buyers and renters. The Labour Party believes that rather than hand developers more cash to address the housing crisis that we need to get serious about building homes directly. Bringing down the price of land is key to this and reforming the zoned land tax which has so many exemptions it renders it almost useless must be seriously considered by the Minister for Housing as a matter of priority."