Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Do the witnesses agree that alarm bells need to be rung about the current housing crisis?

How would they characterise the housing crisis? It strikes me that with rising rents, the cuts in rent allowance and the chronic lack of provision of social housing, significant numbers of landlords are pulling out of the leasing arrangements the Government hoped would deal with the provision of social housing. All of those issues are now combining to produce a disaster. Would Mr. Brook agree with that? It is certainly the case in Dún Laoghaire where the council officials tell me that for the first time ever they are having to turn people away. They have nothing to offer them. They do not even have a hotel on the other side of the city, which is bad enough. The queue for their homeless accommodation is out the door. Even those on the top of the priority list will be waiting a year. They have nothing to offer in that regard. I would be very grateful if the representatives would use their presence here to ring the alarm bells. They might say categorically that there must be a shift away from this hoped-for provision of social housing from the private rented sector through leasing arrangements and so on. That idea was nonsense. It has failed and clear statements must be made to the effect that we must return to direct provision of social housing via the representatives' organisations or the local authorities. How would the representatives respond to that?