Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

My question is on another matter, but I have to say that the entire country is flying blind and the Taoiseach should restore those briefings as a matter of urgency if he wants to take people with him in what is a difficult situation.

If the recent opinion poll taken in respect of the by-election in Dublin Bay South is anything to judge by, there is a very real possibility, maybe even a likelihood, that the Government parties are going to lose a seat. There are many reasons that this might happen.

From my experience at the doors the issue is very much to do with an entire generation of young people, which we talked about earlier, and their parents, who are absolutely furious about the failure of successive Governments to provide for that entire generation of young people the prospect of actually being able to have an affordable roof over their heads in the coming years. That problem of the housing crisis caused by the successive failures of Fianna Fáil- and Fine Gael-led Governments is not just for a whole generation of young working people. It also affects older people who might find themselves separated, evicted by landlords because of loopholes in residential tenancies legislation and so on.

The Government and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, have said they are going to try to do something about it. I have very serious doubts about that and about the Government's actual commitment to provide public and genuinely affordable housing for the people who need it. Tonight the Land Development Agency Bill 2021 will be completing its journey through the Dáil. In our view, the Government is going to open up the entire public landbank to private financiers, private investment funds and so on, when that land should be used exclusively for the delivery of public and genuinely affordable housing. By "genuinely affordable" we do not mean €450,000 in parts of Dublin or €400,000, which is completely unaffordable for the vast majority or working people. We mean affordable based on the people's income, where they should not have to pay 50%, 60% or 70% of income on mortgage repayments or on rents. They should have to pay no more than 25%.

When we debated these issues on Committee Stage of the Land Development Agency Bill 2021 recently, on foot of our objections about this the Minister said he would bring in amendments that would mean, at least in the major urban centres, there would be a change of heart by the Government and that public land would be used to provide 100% public and genuinely affordable housing. The Minister has not brought forward those amendments. The Affordable Housing Bill is still not clear that affordable housing will actually be affordable for ordinary working people. Why has the Minister reneged on his commitments to bringing those amendments?

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