Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We are all on the same hymn sheet. I agree strongly with Dr. Hearne's narrative about the inefficiency, cost and viability of PPPs, or privatised forms of social housing delivery, being crazy from the point of view of trying to resolve the housing crisis. Instead, we need to move urgently towards the direct provision of public housing on public land.

I am curious to know the delegates' opinions on what is happening in the private sector and its capacity to deliver. We have gone over how relying on the private sector to deliver public housing will cost us a fortune. On the leasing component, Dr. Hearne added to the facts we already knew. It is a stark figure, in that we could get four directly built council houses for the cost of leasing one for 25 years. He produced the staggering figure of in excess of €20 billion for the overall cost of the HAP scheme over a period of 35 years. That is a folly about which we have all talked a great deal and which we have contrasted with direct provision by council housing which is cheaper, faster, more efficient and better at every level. What we have not talked about enough - it is the matter on which I would like to get the delegates' opinion - is the question of where the private market is going. Aside from the cost issue, is the private market capable of delivering the housing the Government hopes it will? Mr. Mel Reynolds has made a convincing argument that, whatever we may think about the private market's capacity to deliver social housing - we do not think much of it - it may not be able to deliver any housing at all on the scale the Government imagines it will.

This is because the costs for the private sector are now so high that it is becoming increasingly tenuous as to whether it is viable at all for the private sector to deliver. At some point, it will become very clear that is just not viable for the private sector, which is an even bigger reason to shift over to public sector provision. I am curious as to the thoughts of the witnesses on that, given it has already been said that an incredible 85% of the Rebuilding Ireland plan is dependent on private sector output, which is terrifying. Where we are heading is terrifying. Would the witnesses agree that we really have to start ringing the alarm bells on that front?