Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. What has been happening recently, and accelerating over the past number of years, is that the likes of Facebook, Google and their senior management teams have been buying homes in the Ringsend area. Prices are huge there now. There is a small one-bedroom cottage in Ringsend for which people are being asked to pay more than €400,000. This is not affordable. The long-term community in Ringsend is being forced to move out and it is having a negative impact on the community at large. The Capital Dock building, which the Minister of State has probably seen in Ringsend, did not provide any social housing in the area because developers bought their way out of providing Part V social housing by providing the housing in Rialto. That is great for Rialto and in the general context of the housing list and housing crisis but the difficulty is there are no new social and affordable homes being provided in Ringsend. Prices are so high that the council stated that it cannot afford to pay the prices developers are requesting.

Ringsend gets left behind and gentrification continues. Working families are being left behind so affordable homes not only on the old Irish Glass Bottle site but elsewhere are really important. We need public housing on public land and affordable housing to ensure people get homes and do not have to move too far from their community. Government needs to intervene on the old Irish Glass Bottle site and I am not seeing that yet.

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