Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I might suggest that the Taoiseach go back to Cork, not for the purpose of a photo opportunity with a hard hat on, but to actually talk with the people who have told me, and who I am sure would tell him, of their huge anger and frustration. The houses are not available and there is no point in the Minister trying to bamboozle people with statistics. The lived reality is that people cannot get houses. They pass by boarded-up homes, which adds insult to injury.

In the context of O'Devaney Gardens, we are left in a situation where the use of public land will give rise to a bid windfall for the developer and the community will be left in the lurch. On the one hand, we are caught between Fine Gael, which does not know what affordability means and whose plan brought forward no affordable purchase homes, and Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, the Green Party and the Social Democrats, who cobbled together, mar dhea, a dog's dinner of a so-called deal just to get the proposal through the council. They misled Dublin City Council, they misled the general public and, most damningly, they misled the community living in that part of the inner city.

I again put it to the Minister that these plans with Bartra be put aside and that we collectively do the right thing, which is absolutely doable and achievable, and deliver real, affordable homes, affordable rental homes and the much-needed council housing. This can still be done but we need people to step up and move away from the Fianna Fáil brand of chancing the arm, winging it and hoping to get away with it.

This is a disgrace. What is happening on the site is an absolute disgrace-----

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