Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin has accepted the off balance sheet model as being workable and also, on the last day of the committee, watered down the social proposal that was in the report, which is disappointing. There is a big difference between direct building of local authority housing by local authorities and increasing the social housing stock through acquisitions, voids, refurbishments and build. The difference is probably 16,000 houses a year, if one bases it on last year.

Finally, I will mention NAMA. I do not have time to go into it, but NAMA has sold enough land already for 21,000 houses in key areas where it is needed and it has a claim on, or directly controls, 2,800 hectares of residentially zoned development land - 1,100 hectares of which are in Dublin and 600 are in Cork. We could build 100,000 homes on those lands if NAMA were used in a different way. It will not happen under this Government.

The problem and the barrier is ideological, and also the fact the construction sector and the land is in the control of private hands. That is the barrier. We have the land, we have the finances but we cannot control it ourselves. It seems to me we need a left Government that would take on and overcome these barriers.

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