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

Yes. I am asking whether this committee is responsible for the misguided policy of believing that leasing from the private sector in general is capable of dealing with the problem when it self-evidently is not. This is something the Taoiseach repeated this morning and I heard it on Leaders' Questions. How can he possibly state that delivering private housing will provide social housing or deal with the social housing and homeless crisis? I just do not get the mindset.

Is it not obvious that the way to deliver social housing and deal with homelessness is for the State to provide it and provide the resources to deal with homelessness? The Taoiseach continues to make the bizarre assertion that by providing private housing through the State via NAMA is somehow an answer to the social housing crisis and the homelessness crisis. From where is this stuff coming? Is it not time to admit that the ideology informing these policies has been a spectacular failure and must be abandoned?

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