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

I am afraid the Tánaiste is the one who is driven by blind ideology.

In the past couple of weeks, I had to deal with somebody who has been on the housing list for 19 years and who has just been evicted from a HAP tenancy, which is supposed to be one of the Tánaiste's housing solutions. She will now be driven back into another HAP, which is insecure. The Tánaiste is claiming that is a housing solution; it is not. The problem is the vast majority of the Government's plans to deal with the housing crisis are an accident waiting to happen because they are reliant on a private sector that cannot deliver.

The Tánaiste did not respond to something that is being discussed as we speak where the Secretary General of the Department of Finance is answering questions at the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government about the fact that another pillar of the Government's housing plan is now in serious trouble. The magic formula of using off-balance sheet rather than local authority funding has run into big problems because the CSO and EUROSTAT are classifying it as on-balance sheet. This affects the level of Government debt and the general Government balance and, as I said, puts in jeopardy 15,000 of the approved housing body units that are supposed to be delivered under the Government's plan.

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