Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the Minister and his officials in the Department put a lot of work into this plan and would have spent a lot of time on it. Let us be clear about what is happening in terms of the comments made earlier by the Minister and in the media. There is an attempt to normalise our housing crisis by saying it is a problem internationally and by pointing to what is going on in other European countries to make it acceptable somehow. This was tried by the previous Government and the now Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, when he commented on homelessness. He tried to normalise it by saying it is an international problem. People saw through that and the public did not accept it and the public will not accept this now.

The reality and truth are that we have some of the highest rents in the European Union in this city and that we have some of the highest housing costs in the European Union. Those are facts and this is not normal. The reason for that is we have a high-risk, high-cost and highly speculative method of delivering housing. I have no issue with private development and I want to see more of it but the problem we have is we do not have enough not-for-profit, affordable or cost rental development taking place. That is the missing piece.

On cost rental, something unusual is happening in Ireland in that we are defining cost rental on a basis on which it is not defined anywhere else in the world that I am aware of. Cost rental is understood to provide rented accommodation at the cost of providing it, that is, on a not-for-profit basis. What the Government has done in the Affordable Housing Act is allow for cost rental on a for-profit basis. That is not done anywhere else in the world that I am aware of. It is not done in Austria. Any surplus from cost rental in Austria is reinvested into cost rental. That is part of the sustainability of the system. It is simply not true to state otherwise.

We have a Minister who likes to state otherwise. He came into this House on 24 June and told me the Central Bank had passed and approved his shared equity scheme. Does the Minister stand over those comments he made to me on 24 June?

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