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

The Government has consistently defended the role of big property investment funds by saying that they could contribute to addressing the housing crisis and delivering the famous supply. Last week, a crowd called Occu, acting on behalf of a group called Haliday, advertised build-to-rent apartments. These are two blocks, Cualanor, in Dún Laoghaire. One young woman I know, who is facing homelessness and is approved for the housing assistance payment, HAP, went there and was told by the person present to look around and that she could have whatever apartment she wanted. They were advertised, by the way, at €2,200. She said she would have No. 11 and, having looked at it, then said she would need to sort this out with HAP. She said she would have to overpay on the HAP homeless rate, which is only €1,900, but many people do that. As soon as she mentioned HAP, she was told: "Oh, I'm sorry, we are not set up to do HAP". My office then phoned the same crowd to ask why they were not taking HAP. We were told that it was not set up for it and anyway all the places had now been rented out. That is outrageous. What will the Government do about that kind of thing? How can it defend that behaviour by estate agents and owners of apartment blocks?

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