Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Maybe the Taoiseach might actually answer the question this time. Half of the proposed housing in Damastown would be affordable housing, which is a mix. One could not have more of a mix than with 550 affordable mortgages and the development could be delivered. The affordable mortgages would pay for themselves over the period. What the Taoiseach proposes through the HAP scheme is much more expensive than building directly. Since the HAP scheme will, over 30 years, cost €23 billion more than building 132,000 permanent homes, why does he follow this creed? Is it because a few people are enriching themselves off the back of the misery of tens of thousands more?

Regarding Fingal and the other local authority areas the Taoiseach cited, I am discussing direct building, which is the cheapest and most cost-effective way of providing housing, not acquiring at market rates, which is expensive. I hope the Taoiseach will get his party's councillors to back it. We have been told that money is not the object and that there is no shortage of it. The then Minister for Finance appeared before the housing committee last year and it seems that the European Union's fiscal rules prevent us from using money we have available - we do not need to borrow it - to build public homes on public lands. Anyone can see that this is the solution, but it seems that there is neoliberal ideological opposition to doing this and a prioritisation of the private sector at all costs.

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