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

It gives me no pleasure to say that the Housing for All plan will not work. The housing crisis created by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the capitalist housing market will not be solved by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the capitalist housing market, even if the Green Party is now included in the mix by way of decoration. The plan relies on the private sector to deliver 156,000 houses between now and 2030 but you cannot control what you do not own and the State has no control over whether these houses will ever be built, or over the price at which those that are actually built will be sold. We need an end to market madness. The business of housing delivery needs to be taken out of the hands of the profiteers and put into the hands of society by way of the nationalisation of the building industry under democratic control.

The people of Berlin have voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking 250,000 apartments owned and controlled by for-profit corporations into public ownership. They realise the importance of nationalisation as a tool for tackling their housing crisis. It is disappointing that both Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats spurned the opportunity this morning to support similar measures in this country. Sinn Féin told The Journalthat it was not necessarily the answer to Ireland's housing woes while the Social Democrats dodged the question altogether. Market madness will never solve Ireland's housing crisis and nationalisation is key to tackling it, alongside a policy of building public housing on public land. I refer to both council housing and genuinely affordable cost-price housing. The sooner all who oppose the Government's strategy see that, the better.

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