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

When we trawl through the jargon, the paper to which I referred, produced by the Minister's Department, shows that 97,000 of the social housing units the Government plans to provide between now and 2021 will be provided by the private sector. Only 33,000 units will be directly built. The Department's paper actually states that in cities such as Dublin, that is going to blow a black hole in the public finances. The cost of property and rents are ratcheting up at a dramatic rate. We are going to be paying the landlords month after month, year after year, reaching up to a target of 97,000 different units that we will be leasing and renting. In Dublin, rents are now between €1,500 and €2,500 per month. One estimate suggests this could cost us €23 billion over 20 years.

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