Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In my brief time here, I have lived to see the likes of the IMF, the EU, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, Social Justice Ireland and now the ESRI all highlighting our chronic infrastructural deficit. I take on board what the Minister is saying in regard to increases in housing supply and so on but the reality is the ESRI is literally telling us that we need to double this in order to deal with the major crisis of the time that people are facing. The real ideological position is to hold to a housing delivery model that has utterly failed and which has drawn the concerns of no less than the IMF, the EU and the UN.

If all these organisations tell the Government to change course with housing, it takes a major ideological commitment to try to protect a failed status quo.

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