Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is one very practical thing that I would love to see and that is abolishing from the English language a word that everybody seems to use. To me, if a property owner is involved in the business of maintaining his or her property and renting it out to somebody else, then he or she is a property owner. All the lords and all those sorts of people were dealt with a long time ago in this country. I hate the word "landlord" and believe that it should not exist because there are people who own a property and rent it out in the best way that they can.

I would like to hear what Professor Kinsella has to say about the private rental market. I ask because if we are going to ensure that in the future there will be a private market then no matter who is in power part of the solution, and not the problem, will be the private side of property ownership. I would love to see the day when every young couple and person who is starting out could own their own property. If that could be the case then it would be brilliant but I do not see how that can happen in the real world when one sees the cost of materials and the cost of sites, which make ownership unfeasible. If politicians continue in the way that they have and hunt people out of private ownership, putting it up to people that they should not be doing that, then owners will sell on but it will not be to somebody else who will rent out the property and that is why the amount of available property is so small. Any day of the week one can see on daft.iethat the amount of properties available to rent is ever decreasing and that is why the housing market is a nightmare. At my constituency clinics one continually encounters people saying that they are eligible for HAP, are only starting out and in year one, two, three, four or five of what could be a ten or 12-year waiting list for a local authority house or property, if they were to get it, and they ask what they can do in the meantime. They tell me that they need a private house or apartment and ask where can they get one as it does not exist.

Another thing that has happened is that an awful lot of landlords will not accept HAP. That situation creates an awful problem because it reduces supply even more. Where can we go now? Are we going to finish up with no privately owned properties being available? If one cannot get a local authority house or apartment when one needs it then there will be nothing else available. Such a scenario will be an awful situation. What will the political people who jump up and down and demonise the property owners say then? One would not want to rely on the politicians who are jumping up and down to create one house for anybody because they never built one or have never done anything except talk an awful lot. They talk a lot but they would not be practically able to do one thing of any use for anybody.