The party leader said housing is the “key priority” for the Social Democrats coming into the general election.
While speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland, she said there are certain differences between Sinn Féin’s affordable housing plan and the one of the Social Democrats.
“We’ll have all the details published in the coming weeks,” she said.
“There’s problems in all of Western Europe with regard to housing, but Ireland stands out. The approach we have isn’t working.
“We need a new approach, a different approach to housing, and that is a key priority for us going into this election,” she added.
It comes as the Central Bank has warned that around 52,000 new homes could be needed per year until 2050 – around 20,000 short of the number built last year.
She said that today’s report “highlights the need for our affordable housing plan”.
“It highlights the need to try and bridge the affordability gap, but not in a way that brings up the price of housing and I think that’s probably a direct reference to the Government’s Help-to-Buy scheme.
“But in our plan, the direct support would go towards the not-for-profit sector, which has proven to be able to build affordable purchase homes, because that’s the key thing here.
“Homes being built that are completely unaffordable isn’t the answer to this. That’s where the priority needs to be.
“In addition to that, there’s the things that were highlighted in the report – the planning, productivity and access to finance. All of those are addressed in our housing plan,” she said.
In early September, Sinn Féin unveiled its five-year A Home Of Your Own plan to build 300,000 homes at a cost of €39 billion.
As part of its plan, the party said it will build affordable home through the state retaining ownership of the land on which the house is built.
“Under our plan, the owner would own the house and the land. But we agree that you need to control the price and how much prices and the value of houses can skyrocket because we need to move away from seeing housing as an investment vehicle, and that’s what we kind of do in many ways in Ireland.
“Housing is somewhere where you can build a future, put down roots, raise a family, have kind of a grounding and independence, but that can be done through the way that land is zoned, and that’s the focus,” she said.
Ms Cairns said housing in Ireland is “the elephant in the country”.
“We have the latest of many reports highlighting that the Government’s approach isn’t working.
“Their approach to housing, to be fair, it’s tried, it’s tested, it’s failed, then it’s been tried again, tested again, and it’s failed again, report after report saying they need to change their approach,” she said.
“So we’re saying to people, if you want to see a change in the approach, you have to change what you vote for.”
The Social Democrats nearly doubled the number of councillors in the local elections, with 35 councillors being elected – up from 19 in 2019.
Ms Cairns also confirmed the Social Democrats will talk to every party after the general election.
“We’ll talk to absolutely everybody after the election. That’s what we’ve always said, and that’s what we’ll do.
“We really want to harness and build on the momentum we have from the local elections, where we almost doubled our councillors.
“We had our think-in over the last two days and we’re setting out a clear platform. We want to go to the people with a very clear plan and we’re not going to over-promise and under-deliver promises.
“Our priority has always been and is to invest in public services to lift people out of poverty,” she added.
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said that a report warning of the shortage of housing in Ireland has made him “more determined” to look at supporting house building.
He was responding to a warning from the Central Bank that said around 52,000 new homes could be needed per year until 2050 – around 20,000 short of the number built last year.
Mr Harris said the report noted that Ireland was spending the second most on housing in Europe in an effort to “catch up on loss” after the economic crash.
“The report does show serious pent-up demand in terms of housing in this country. It does make me all the more determined to look at how we can further support agencies and work that we know is working.
“So one example is the Land Development Agency (LDA), I think the LDA is making a real positive difference. Can we provide that with more funding?
“So when I’ve been talking this summer around what we can do with infrastructure, what we can do with the sales in bank shares, indeed, what we can do with the Apple revenue, I think there’s real possibilities here in relation to housing.”
