Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Leo Varadkar rolled out the red carpet, Mícheál Martin opened the door and seated the guests while Eoghan Murphy poured the wine but now the Government is throwing its hands up in horror because the guests are eating too much. What the hell did it expect? It gave them everything they wanted. It gave them tax breaks on corporation tax and on capital gains tax. It gave them what they wanted on the rent roll and on stamp duty. Last week the Government said it was going to sort it out but it has not been sorted out yet. It is not a question of clipping the wings of the vulture funds; we want them driven out of the nest, out of the housing market. We need housing for people, not housing for profit. The Government must reverse all of those tax breaks as an immediate first step.

There was some interesting commentary during the week. One chap from County Kildare, who announced his intention to vote Sinn Féin at the next election, although he did not express too much confidence that it would fundamentally change things, said that he wanted a Government to support a policy of not lining the pockets of developers with crazy lease agreements. He wanted a Government that would not put him in a position of choosing between paying some amateur clown's second mortgage or renting from a faceless institution, both insanely at a rate of between 120% to 150% of a typical mortgage on the same property. A poster on Twitter today said that the really problematic joint for young people's mental health is the need for a joint income to get out of their parents' house. A big conversation has started about this. The Government says that housing is now its number one priority. Housing has been the number one priority for a huge number of working people, especially young people, for quite some time. They have more or less got their cards marked at this stage but they will watch this Government to determine which side it is on. Unless the Government shows - I do not believe it will - that it is on the side of working people and young people rather than speculators and cuckoos, then the housing issue, which is a ticking time bomb, could actually blow this Government up.

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