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

In his discussions on the economic situation in Europe at the European Council, did the Taoiseach raise the issue of the property sector, housing and homelessness? The reason I ask this is that if we were to sum up in a few words the cause of the European and global economic crisis, it could probably be summed up as "property speculation in the area of housing". In the Taoiseach's consideration or in that of his colleagues in Europe, is there any awareness of issues about which I have been trying to ring an alarm bell for a year and a half, that with real estate investment trusts, rising rents, growing homelessness and so on, we are starting to do it all again. We are starting to repeat the mistakes we made in the area of property and housing that led to the bubble and the crash that beggared the people of this country and brought the European economy close to the brink.

I find it extraordinary that in the reports and discussions on the situation we talk about banking union, stress tests for the banks and the viability of the banking system etc. It is all about the banks. We all know the banks want property values to rise. It is in their interests that rents rise, because this increases the value of property and their balance sheets look good. The human consequence of inflating the property market again to benefit the banks is that people are being made homeless. This is not just an Irish problem, but the problem is particularly acute here because property was so central to what crashed our economy. This is happening in Greece, Spain and is starting to happen elsewhere.

As cynical as I am about the neoliberal dogma that dominates European political and economic thought, even I cannot believe that only six or seven years after the crash caused by this issue, it is being stoked up again. I must point out that the Taoiseach's comments, while in New York, encouraging American investors in the idea of making a killing on the Dublin property market were alarming and dangerous, because he was talking yet again about a crisis -----

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