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

This is not a matter of ideology, but of pure common sense. That is why I assume the Taoiseach's colleagues on Dublin City Council, or a good number of them, voted down this proposal. It is a matter of proper standards, the right approach to housing policy and a matter of logic that one does not hand over massively valuable sites to private developers so that they can profit and ordinary working people are still left outside the housing market.

The sum of €380,000 for a three-bedroom home is not affordable to the vast majority of working people. That is the reality. The Taoiseach is quite correct: the site is vacant since the 1970s. Let it be recorded that the previous Government the Taoiseach supported by way of confidence and supply refused the fund the proper development of public housing on this hugely valuable site. I am asking the Taoiseach if he will change that policy.

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