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

What can we expect in terms of the provision of housing under the capital plan? Today, we have had further evidence of the failure of the Government's policy to deal with spiralling house prices. An increase of 12.7% has just been reported. This is on top of the news yesterday of an 81% increase in rent since 2010. It seems as if the Government's solution to all this is to say that, at some point, the private sector will ramp up supply to the point that prices will fall. This is such a fantasy but it is never scrutinised.

With the exception of disastrous economic crashes of the kind we had in 2008, prices and rents never fall. They are not going to fall over the medium or longer term, yet the Government's whole housing strategy is based on the fantasy that the market will at some point lead to a reduction in the price of property. I put it to the Government that the only way this could happen is if there were a very dramatic ramping up of State provision of housing. What can we expect in terms of not-for-profit housing whose price and rent we control? What plan can we expect for the State provision of housing to deal with the needs of our country over the period of the plan?

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