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

I accept that there is a supply problem. We should immediately use €4 billion of NAMA's cash reserves to start a massive public works programme involving the construction of affordable housing. It is not that NAMA is creating this problem but that it has no interest in solving it. More to the point, the people to whom NAMA sells these assets have no interest in the problem. I am not making a moral judgment; I am simply making a statement of fact. Big corporate investors in property do not give a damn about affordability or the housing and homelessness crisis. The Minister's job is to give a damn about these things. They will charge market rents or what they can get, even if it makes property unaffordable for significant numbers of people. Those who increasingly control the private rented sector and the property sector do not give a damn about whether ordinary people on low and middle incomes can afford property. As long as they can rent stuff to the people who can afford it, they will make money. The Minister's job is to make sure housing is affordable. That is basic. The economy cannot function if substantial numbers of people in the economy cannot put a roof over their heads. That is elementary. The State has failed to intervene by taking control of rents, prices and enough property to make sure rents and prices are kept down.

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