Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This housing crisis originated over a decade ago, springing from a particular ideology.

That ideology said that the State would build no more houses and it would be left up to the free market. That is why we have a homelessness crisis and a housing crisis today in which nearly 10,000 people are homeless. That can seem abstract to people in this House but it is not abstract to me or to most of my comrades here. People are living in hotels and bed and breakfasts and sometimes in cars, tents and streets. It is completely unacceptable.

I will mention the C-word, which is "class". There is a deep class prejudice in the Government when it comes to housing. The narrative is that social housing equates to ghettoisation, bad people and anti-social behaviour. I reject that and, as a person who comes from a council estate, find it insulting. There are some amazing people who have lived in council houses. The majority of social housing has been a huge success in this country. Of course there are instances where it has failed but it has largely been successful. Under this Government and under Fianna Fáil, social housing has become a dirty word. That is why we have a terrible situation in this country.

I want to make it less abstract and I want the Minister of State to comment on this point, which really gets at the heart of the problem. There is a site in Clondalkin called Kilcarbery Grange. It is a site of 71 acres and it is being sold off to private developers. This land could provide as many as 900 social and affordable homes. It is owned by the State, which is selling it off to developers. The council will then buy back 30% of the houses from the developers. Basically, the council will sell the land, the developer will build the houses and then the developer will sell that 30% back to the council. How does that make sense? The council will have to buy 30%, approximately 290 houses, at market rate. Can anybody make sense of this? I do not know how this makes sense. What the Government is doing, as have successive Governments, is to sell public land off to developers at the height of the worst crisis in the State. That is absolutely unforgivable. It comes down to political choice and political ideology.

Some people do not like using the word "class". I actually like using it. It defines the situation we have in this country, where people are discriminated against on a class basis. If these were 10,000 people from a different class bracket, this would not be the case. The Minister of State knows that, as do I and as does everyone in this House. If this affected 10,000 people from Foxrock, there would not be 10,000 people on the streets or homeless. That is a fact.

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