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

There are talks, plans and promises but the reality is the situation just gets worse. More people are homeless and more are being threatened with eviction. Rents are rising to obscene levels and are still going higher. House prices are at obscene levels and are still going higher. Families who have done nothing wrong are being evicted. Students cannot get accommodation that is anything even approaching affordable. It is just gets worse. That is why I invite people who are fed up - and I think the majority of people are fed up and think this is a disaster - to get out on the streets this Saturday and march to force this Government finally to listen.

Frankly, the Minister is not telling the truth when he says the local authorities are building more public housing. I just got the figures from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on the social housing it will build for the next four years. Out of 2,300 houses, approximately 10% will be directly built by the council. For the rest, it is relying on private developers. This is the truth of what is going on. Anybody can just look around the city to see the apartment blocks going up. They are not being built by councils but investors charging obscene rents and prices. That is the truth.

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