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

The arguments have largely been made but on the flipping of land, it is worth mentioning the Cherrywood development. The main investor bought it for a song. Let us remind ourselves - the biggest residential development site in the country was bought by a wealth asset management company which sat on it for quite a long period and then started to flip the sites. That is what caused the situation we are now dealing with, where the site is being built out and it is €600,000, €700,000 or €800,000 for very modest houses. A reason is Hines, the main developer, was flipping the sites as it watched prices go up to the point at which I would say it probably made a profit before it built anything, which is outrageous. The net result is people having to pay those prices and vast numbers are completely priced out of ever being able to afford them. When a local authority says a site is strategically important, it should have the power to say it wants to make sure it is affordable and is not going to just make it an opportunity for investors to make a fortune. It should be able to make sure it meets a social objective, namely be used for social and affordable housing and to help to bring down property values generally. God almighty, in Dublin 4, could we not do with bringing down property values by citing somewhere like the Jurys site for affordable housing only? That would be of benefit not just in what would be done on that site but also to help bring down the astronomical property values in places like Dublin 4. Those are a couple of examples to back up the logic behind this amendment.