Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The death of Jonathan Corrie is shocking but not surprising. I thought Rory Hearne of Maynooth University put it well when he said recently:

When our financial system was in peril there was no obstacle too large for our political establishment and the state to overcome. Now we face an equivalent crisis in terms of the fundamental housing needs and rights of hundreds of thousands of our citizens. It is legitimate to ask why the same radical approach that determinedly did 'whatever was needed to be done' is not applied to the housing crisis. It appears it is because the government is unwilling to stand up to the financial and property investors and transform the residential property market into a system to meet housing needs.

Rent supplements were capped but rents were not, and never the twain shall meet. The system does not work. We were told NAMA was to have a mandate to contribute to the social and economic development of the State, but that has not happened. It has not contributed to the public good, despite the significant potential it had to do so. In fact, the manner in which it has sold assets to large investment bodies, particularly real estate investment trusts, has significantly worsened the housing crisis.

I know of a development in which apartments were sold for less than half of what it would cost to build them today, and where rent two years ago for a two-bedroom apartment was €1,000 per month, which has increased to €1,200 or €1,250. Tenants have been told their rent will increase to €1,400 a month.

In its so-called housing strategy the Government told us that 75,000 of the people in need will be at the mercy of the private rental market. If it allows that, and does not control and monitor the private rental market, we will have the same fiasco. It will not work.

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