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

The Taoiseach is misleading people. He is correct that the mandate set by the Government for NAMA is to blame for this outrageous situation. Let us remember what is at stake here: thousands of families are homeless, almost 100,000 families are on housing waiting lists and 70% of working people are completely priced out of the housing market.

The truth is the NAMA legislation first of all requires the agency to avoid undue concentrations or distortions in the market for development land and to have regard to proper planning and sustainable development land and it gives the Minister the power to confer on NAMA, by order, additional functions. It also has a requirement to contribute to the social and economic development of the State. The power is there. It is in the hands of the Government to tell NAMA what to do with its remaining housing and land assets. The Government refuses to tell NAMA to deliver all it can, namely, 24,000 homes, which would contribute enormously to alleviating the housing crisis. It refuses also to tell the agency that it must deliver all that as exclusively public and genuinely affordable housing, instead of what it is currently doing, which is selling it to profit-hungry investors who are driving the price of property and rent through the roof and contributing to the housing crisis.

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