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

For the more than 100,000 families and households rotting on housing lists for 15 years and longer and the thousands of families suffering the cruelty and hardship of homelessness, I regret to give my opinion that this document is an incredible disappointment. At best, it is yet another mirage and false dawn for those who desperately need solutions to the housing crisis. At worst, I believe it to be a cynical exercise in spoof and dishonesty in that it masks a move to retreat from the provision of local authority housing to the privatisation of housing provision under the guise of a promise of an increase in social housing provision.

If that contention is not true, the Taoiseach will be able to answer a simple question - an answer that is not contained in the report. How many local authority houses will be built between 2016 to 2020, the years of this plan? I am being very specific; my question is about local authority houses. I am not asking about the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, the housing assistance payment, HAP, leasing arrangements, public private partnerships or approved housing bodies. I am asking about council houses. How many will be built? It is not in the report, it was never in Deputy Alan Kelly's report and the Taoiseach never answers that question. I believe what is clearly spelt out in this document is that this is all about more incentives, grants and supports for private developers and vulture funds, in the hope of creating a mirage that the private, for profit sector will deliver the social housing we need when it will not. What we need are council houses.

If I am wrong, the Taoiseach should tell me. Will he give me the specific figures? How many council houses will be built next year and in subsequent years? I suspect the Taoiseach will not be able to give me the answer to the question. In any event, the figure will be well south of the headline figures being blasted all over the media at the moment. Let him prove me wrong and give hope to those who have been waiting for 15 years and longer on a housing list. Let him tell them there is light at the end of the tunnel. However, there is no such light in this document, which is a manifesto to privatise public housing.

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