Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

When we look at Government policy over the last ten years and where we are now, I knew back then that we had a housing crisis. In fact in my maiden speech in Cork City Council in 2009, I outlined that there was a crisis on the way and I was ridiculed by the Government parties at the time. I knew it from the streets and from people coming to my clinics who were telling me there was a problem. That was at the time of the financial crisis. Even though we had ghost estates all over the place, in big cities and big urban areas there was a shortage of housing back then. I am of the firm belief that Government policy has worked, but only to increase rents and house prices to their highest levels ever and to make banks, investment funds and investment companies more profitable. I believe the policy has worked because I do not believe the policy was ever to fix the housing crisis. In actual fact, the last housing Minister, who is gone now, gave us a figure of 40,000 per year but we just got over 30,000. We see this year that the figures are going to be shockingly low again. My question for the witnesses, although I understand it is a political one, is whether the current Government's housing strategy will solve the housing and homeless crisis that we have now.