Fine Gael has pledged to use part of the State’s bonanza from the Apple tax case to fund the extension and expansion of the Help to Buy (HTB) scheme over the lifetime of the next government, The Sunday Times reports.
The party has said it will use €10 billion of the €14 billion windfall to fuel its housing plans, including extending the HTB scheme out to 2030 and increasing the relief from €30,000 to €40,000.
In last month’s budget, the Government pledged to extend the relief out to 2029 at a full-year cost of €185 million.
Overall, Fine Gael is pledging €40 billion for the development of more than 300,000 homes between now and 2030.
A Central Bank report published in September reveal that the scheme been used by around 30 per cent of first-time buyers over the past six years, at a cost of €938 million as of the end of 2023.
Michael O’Flynn slams revised housing targets
The Business Post carries the story that Michael O’Flynn, the veteran builder and member of the Government’s Housing Commission, has said the outgoing Coalition’s revised housing targets lack ambition.
Last week, a new target of 303,000 new homes for the period between 2025 and 2030 was unveiled. That amounts to an average of 50,500 new homes a year.
But Mr O’Flynn said the revision does not adequately account for the effect of pent-up demand for housing in the market and will worsen the housing crisis.
“I wish they were more ambitious. The targets need to be right to enable the right amount of zoning of land and the right amount of infrastructure that needs to be strategically planned,” he told the paper.
TVC Holdings shareholders to get final pay out
Also in the Business Post, shareholders in Shane Reihill’s venture capital firm TVC Holdings are set to receive a payout after liquidators were finally appointed to the company, a decade after it began winding down.
The investment group began winding down in May 2014. At the time, the firm said it planned to return 90 per cent of its €91 million in cash and shares in UTV Media to shareholders after it couldn’t find any more profitable investments in Ireland.
The fund’s final investment was CR2, a banking software company, which was sold to a Moroccan financial services company in May.
Liquidators have now been appointed to TVC and a payout to shareholders of €0.09 per share is expected subject to liquidator approval.
It means Mr Reihill, who holds 29,217,129 shares, would receive €2.6 million if the payout is signed off upon.
Concern for future of MacArdle Brewery
The Sunday Independent reports that Alltech has kicked off a review of its operations at the former MacArdle Moore Brewery in Dundalk, Co Louth, raising concerns that it could wind down the business.
Founded by the late businessman Dr Pearse Lyons, the food and nutrition company acquired the Newry-based Station Works Brewery in 2015 before moving it to the Dundalk site after Diageo moves production of MacArdles Traiditional Ale to St James’s Gate.
Alltech, which makes beers including Stationworks and Finns at the Dundalk facility, is now in a “consultation process” over its future in Louth.
It comes at a difficult time for craft beer internationally with large multinationals like Diageo and Heineken having made inroads into the competition in recent times, snapping up smaller independent producers.
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