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

Where would we get the money if we did not have these investors to build the houses we need? Credit unions have said repeatedly they have the money, which are savings as well, but in a not-for-profit institution, where they have the interests of our communities and the social objective of housing people at heart. That is one source of money.

I refer to what we discussed earlier about household wealth in this country. Of the €936 billion net household wealth, more than €400 billion of it is financial assets, the savings of people here. Where is that money? It is in the banks, the banks we bailed out. There are lots of savings here. One of the things credit unions informed me, which I did not even know, is that they want to make decisions about what they put their money into, but they often have to put it into commercial banks, who may invest it in all sorts of things they have no interest in. They would like to be able to invest it in building social housing for the people in their communities at affordable levels. There is money to build houses.

If we bring these people in, their concern is how much money they can make, and they will only build if they can make a lot of money for themselves. That means charging high rents and high prices for property and trying to minimise the tax they pay, which the Government facilitates. It has not worked and there are alternatives. I reject the Minister's suggestion there are not alternatives.

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