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

It would save money for the State because it would get extra rental revenue. Fr. Peter McVerry has pointed out that the €100 million being spent to change the traffic lights at Newlands Cross would build 1,000 houses at current market prices. This year, we are going to spend €9 billion to pay off the debts of bankers. Can the Government not tell Europe that we are going to hold back €1 billion in order to build 10,000 council houses? If Europe insists on being repaid, we could argue that we will make savings by spending that amount every year for five years in terms of the €500 million in rent allowance that goes into landlords' pockets annually. We would be able to repay the money in ten years time. Even the European Investment Bank would accept the logic of that.

There are solutions if the Minister of State is interested in pursuing therm. Tragically, however, the real decisions are being made by the Minister for Finance. He knows that the banks are holding all of these properties and they want to inflate the properties' value in order to save their balance sheets. It suits the banks to have a crisis in which rents and property prices are increasing. Yet again, the citizens of this country are paying a terrible price for the-----

See this speech in context