Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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That is in effect what we are doing. Does that not mean that we are chasing inflation and reinforcing the spiral? The ESRI paper from about a month ago identified the fact that the failure to raise the income thresholds for social housing is denying housing assistance support to people who should have it and would have in the past on the incomes they are earning. I agree that, in the immediate term, they should get those supports, but does it not mean we are chasing inflation? Rather than controlling the price of housing and rent, we are perpetuating or reinforcing the inflationary spiral. To me, it would be far preferable to control the prices. The witnesses refer to distorting the market but are we not dealing with market failures? Rent and housing is clearly a market failure. Some people may say - and I think it is possible but am not sure if the current Government's policies will achieve it - that at some point we should be able to address that market failure by building enough houses. In the interim, if the choice to deal with the crisis that situation has produced is between chasing extortionately high levels of rent and house prices or controlling them until we get the supply right, surely controlling is a better option.

On energy, I take the witnesses' point that at European level they should do it. There is profiteering going on. If they can organise sanctions at European level, they should be able to organise controlling energy prices, though there is not much sign they are willing to do it. The French have put a ceiling of 4% on energy price increases. They are not worried about it. Is that not a reasonable response, rather than forking out huge amounts of money chasing excessively high prices?