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

The fact that we are such a small cork is part of the problem. In general, the more things the Government can control, the better the control we have, but to my mind, private interests have too much control over what will happen and they will just do it to us, as they did in the past. That is an ideological point.

One of the issues on which the council should focus a little more and which is referenced in its analysis is the drift and increase in the cost of housing assistance payments. This is an issue about which we should be talking a lot more because we should not be so vulnerable to it. Is the council concerned? I know that it cannot be too political, but it is flagging certain concerns. Is it concerned about what private property sector interests could potentially do to us, given the dependence of Rebuilding Ireland on it? If I was Minister for Finance, I would grab as much of the extra corporation tax revenue as I could, and more, and barrel it in a massive council housing programme because at least that exposure would be reduced significantly and we would also be dealing with what is a major macroeconomic and social problem. The delegates might not agree with all of my prognosis, but do they agree that we have massive exposure in that area that could be every bit as big as some of the others to which we referred in the context of threats and vulnerabilities?