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

For those who face eviction before Christmas, those words are not much consolation. If the Taoiseach recognises this as an emergency, why does he not save those children and families the trauma and hardship they face by immediately instigating emergency legislation that states they will not be evicted and that there will be no evictions while this emergency continues, particularly not in the winter months or facing into Christmas? In other European states, it is against the law to evict people at this time of year, but that will happen here.

It infuriates me when the Taoiseach talks about supply. He did not answer the central question about the article, which is evidence of the supply. Public property is being flogged off to vulture funds. Some 700 of the properties are in my area, Dún Laoghaire, and they would resolve the emergency homelessness crisis there. In Lucan and Santry there are hundreds of apartments that we had in our hands and that could be used to house those families who are in the hubs and who face eviction but we are flogging the apartments off. In the docklands, rents of €3,300 a month will then be charged and will go to Kennedy Wilson, an American vulture fund. Why does the Taoiseach allow that to happen? Why does he allow public property be sold to people who charge extortionate rents and evict people who cannot pay them, when that property could be used to house the families who are in the hubs, on the waiting lists and facing eviction? It is a scandal.

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