Properties in the proposed glass bottle site development, earmarked as affordable housing, should be available to buy for €260,000 to €300,000, according to the Fine Gael candidate for the Dublin Bay South by-election.

In a debate between by-election candidates on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, James Geoghegan said the project will be a "big opportunity for affordable homes in the city" and is the model that will deliver affordable homes to purchase and to rent into the future.

His figures were dismissed by the Sinn Féin candidate Lynn Boylan who said she expects the affordable housing units in the glass bottle site to cost between €450,000 and €500,000.

Senator Boylan said the former minister for housing, Eoghan Murphy, whose resignation resulted in the by-election, had "refused to buy the glass bottle site at a half price discount that was offered to him by NAMA. We could have had almost 4,000 affordable houses delivered for the local community".

Instead, she said a developer is building the properties. She said the "vast majority" of them would be build-to-rent luxury apartments, "even the affordable housing are more likely to be €450,000 to €500,000 which is absolutely not affordable to the people who live in that community".

Labour's candidate Ivana Bacik said the two successive governments since 2016 have "failed" to ensure that their policy was not led by institutional investors.

She said there has been "five wasted years" she said, "when we had prosperity, when the government should have done a great deal more to encourage construction, and to encourage construction of social and affordable homes".

Senator Bacik said: "What we needed and what we now need is State-investment to build homes on public land. What was sought to be done previously was a reliance on a developer-led model and that has patently failed."

The Green Party candidate, Claire Byrne, said her party in Government has ensured the legislation for the "cost-rental model" will be in place by the end of this term, she said that will mean the State building homes that will be rented back at about 40-50% less than the current market rate.

She said this will apply to the glass bottle site development and there will be "a range of options to meet a range of incomes".

The Fianna Fáil candidate, Deirdre Conroy, said there will be at least 850 affordable housing units on the site. The Minister for Housing has not yet given an exact figure.

Meanwhile the People Before Profit candidate said she did not believe that public and social housing causes anti-social problems, "it's the lack of public services and community supports that does that". Brigid Purcell said she believed that units should be made available to people based on their income.

Meanwhile, the Social Democrats candidate said it is "absolutely essential" that the proposed new national maternity hospital, "would be public and secular". Sarah Durcan said: "We have to fix the governance and the ownership. And this Government have kicked the can down the road again and again."

On the Special Criminal Court, Ms Boylan said she is not against it, which her party has long opposed.

She said her party had sought a review of the court, because "the country needs a court system fit for the 21st century to allow us to address 21st century criminality".

Asked by presenter Áine Lawlor whether she was against the Special Criminal Court, she said: "No we support all the courts."

The candidates for the by-election are:

Ivana Bacik (Labour)

Justin Barrett (National Party)

Lynn Boylan (Sinn Féin)

Claire Byrne (Green Party)

Dolores Cahill (Independent)

Deirdre Conroy (Fianna Fáil)

Peter Dooley (Independent)

Sarah Durcan (Social Democrats)

Mannix Flynn (Independent)

James Geoghegan (Fine Gael)

Jacqui Gilbourne (Renua)

John Keigher (Independent)

Colm O'Keefe (Independent)

Brigid Purcell (People Before Profit)

Mairéad Tóibín (Aontú)