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

It is on the amendment. The privatisation of housing has resulted in an enormous crisis. The thinking behind this Bill is to say, in response, that we must dilute standards in order to incentivise private developers. Standards are to be diluted and the Government is to be given the power to override local authorities attempting to uphold standards. Talk about compounding a disastrous mistake.

These amendments are an effort on behalf of Deputies Wallace and Daly to put in place some sort of minimum safeguards against this extraordinary folly on the part of the Government. It was the market that got us to this point but the Minister seems to think we need to give more incentives to the market to get us out of this crisis. The most likely scenario, however, is that the market will bring us right back round in the circle which brought us to this mess in the first place.

I do not know if the Minister heard the comments by the delegates from NAMA at the Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform.

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