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

I do not know whether the Tánaiste is missing the point or just trying to throw mud in people's eyes. According to the article in The Sunday Business Post, the development in question will cost €400 million. I have just outlined how, at an absolute minimum based on current average rents, at the end of this, the State will have paid for the development and a hell of a lot more on top - it could be in excess of €500 million - but will not own it. Mr. Barrett and his friends can pull out of the lease arrangement after 25 years, walk away with a massively valuable asset and evict social housing tenants, having made an enormous profit. This is against the State spending that same money, which we are paying for either way, directly in building council houses. In that case, we would have security for social housing tenants, rental revenue coming to the State and own the asset at the end.

None of that will happen because the Government is insistent that Mr. Barrett and other property speculators have to make extortionate profits out of a social housing emergency which is blighting the lives of tens of thousands of families.

See this speech in context