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

Power, particularly now, is money. Everything else is just decoration. If the Government is cutting budgets for local authorities to provide and maintain social housing while at the same time saying it is empowering local councillors that is frankly a bit disingenuous, to put it very mildly. It has power over an ever-diminishing cake. In that situation only one pressure will come on those councillors.

There will be no pressure on them to reduce rents; let us be clear about that. The only pressure will be to increase rents. That is what will happen. The logic is very similar to what is being done with regard to the property tax. Many others think it is unfair and unjust, and a burden imposed on people who own their own homes. Then, in an act of empowerment, supposedly, the Government is giving local authorities the right to vary that property tax by 15%. The Minister of State and I know which way it will go. It will go up.

See this speech in context