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

Those houses in Peckham were built under the model by which the local authority contracts to build a certain number of public houses and then small builders and private builders come in and build them. It is not a public-private partnership. The Government is throwing mud in people's eyes and trying to create a division by suggesting we are trying to exclude the small builder from involvement in public projects. It is dishonest. The Government should stop playing political games because that is not what we are proposing. Public-private partnership is a very specific model whereby the private financial interest or private developer is involved in deciding things such as the final price of the dwelling. They should have no role in that. That is our point. They have been contracted to build housing at genuinely affordable prices that are set in the interests of those who need social and affordable housing.

They should have no say in what the rents are or at what level the affordable housing cost is set, but with PPPs, they do. Furthermore, there is no risk. Deputy Lahart said there is a risk in PPP. There is no risk; that is the whole problem. The PPP is win, win, win for the private investor. In fact, they will not even enter into the arrangement unless they are guaranteed a win and a pound of flesh. That affects the cost at which it is built and the price at which rent is charged. Even then, they still pull out sometimes, collapsing projects and failing to deliver. We are trying to exclude them because they are not reliable and it delivers housing that is more expensive and, very likely, not affordable.

By the way, on a personalised note, we actively fought to get these sites developed in our area. People Before Profit representatives were the first to say that Shanganagh should be for public housing when the Department of Justice was selling it off. We called for it to be transferred to the local authority, which it subsequently was, and 15 years on not a sod has been turned. Why? When we said we should develop for public and affordable housing, the official ideology, with which this Government is continuing, was that it had to involve private finance. The Government could not then figure out how it could actually deliver affordable housing. Even though the Government approved Shanganagh the other day, we still do not know how much the affordable housing will cost. We still do not know 15 years on. We have no idea what the price is going to be.

That is what public private partnership does as opposed to the local authority simply saying we will have this much public housing, these many cost rental and affordable homes, and then tendering out to whatever builder can build it. That is it. That will provide local work for local builders and all the rest of it. People concerned with profit, however, will have nothing to do with the speed at which that is developed, the mix of housing or the final rents and prices.

Let us be absolutely clear, therefore, about what is being debated here. Deputy O'Callaghan said earlier that this is fundamental because of the four groups mentioned by the Minister. We absolutely want the local authorities, co-operatives, approved housing bodies, AHBs, and not-for-profit entities involved. We absolutely do not want unreliable property investors to have any say over whether we deliver housing because we cannot take a risk on it. This is the thing. If some builder in New York or anywhere else wants to take risks, let that builder take risks. We cannot take a risk with the delivery of affordable and public housing.

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