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

I forgot about the two minutes, so I will have to speed up. I would not particularly like to thank Fianna Fáil for bringing this Bill before us because, of all the motions and Bills we need on the housing crisis, this one would be last on my list. Rent controls, penalties for land hoarding, and a challenge to the EU fiscal rules barring us from spending money that we have on building social housing would be preferable.

The Fianna Fáil Bill applies to Part V and aims to sell off our public housing. I was a councillor for many years, so I can understand why tenants want to buy their houses. It is to pass them on to their families and in some cases to save money. That is because at one point some tenants were paying more than the differential rent in Blanchardstown, with two or three young adults working in the house, and more than their neighbours were paying on their mortgages. It was therefore a practical consideration. Generally, tenants of 30 years' duration will say: "Oh my gosh. Look at what I've paid for this house and I don't own it." In the case of Part V we are not talking about that longevity, but about tenants who have been housed recently. The key problem, however, is that we are talking about a massive drop in social housing stock in the last ten years, and Fianna Fáil is bringing forward a proposal to sell off even more of it during the biggest housing emergency that we have ever had. Extending the ability to sell off public housing during a housing emergency is really irresponsible. It is akin to cutting down trees without replanting them. That is the reality.

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