Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The change in the first-time buyer's rebate had one aim and one aim only, namely, to drive up the price of property and homes. The entire Government policy to deal with the housing crisis has been about increasing prices. The perverse logic is that only the market can supply houses and, if it is not supplying them, we must ensure we make it worth their while to do so. We give tax breaks to developers and landlords and reduce housing and apartment standards. We give developers funds for infrastructure and public lands and cut the level of social housing in every private development required under Part V. We spend billions funding landlords to house people in private property through rent supplement, the housing assistance payment and the rental accommodation scheme and instruct NAMA to sell apartments and houses at knock-down prices to corporate landlords and vulture funds.

As each of these measures fails, the crisis worsens and the number of children and families that are homeless and in emergency accommodation increases. Rents rise beyond the capacity of ordinary working people and more and more people are turning up in the Circuit Court for repossession of their homes. Every new set of figures shows the abject failure of this Government to deal with the housing crisis. The Government's only response is to wonder how it can get the market working and increase house prices so that it is more profitable for its buddies in the building, property and landlord sectors to get out of bed and actually build houses.

I put it to the Minister of State that this move will do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis but will, in fact, bring us back to where we were eight or ten years ago.

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