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

I guess that is a "No". The Government will not be supporting a Bill to reduce rents to affordable levels. That is not overly surprising from parties that are dominated by a disproportionate number of landlords relative to the population. Approximately €13 billion has been spent through HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and leasing since 2001. That money in various rent supports and rent allowance has gone into the pockets of landlords. We now discover - and I note the Taoiseach did not respond on this point - that entities based in tax havens offshore in the Virgin Islands and whose identities are undisclosed are benefiting from this crisis. The Taoiseach is saying it is unrealistic that we control rents. Of course, when we called on the Government to stop evictions, the Government said it could not do it. The Government then stopped evictions during the pandemic because it had to. What happened? The number of families going into homelessness reduced. As soon as the Government allowed evictions to restart, the numbers of families going into homelessness went up and are now at record proportions. The truth is that the Taoiseach has no solutions but tries to dismiss ours when all of his Government's have failed. When will he listen to the hardship and suffering that people are enduring and take on board some proposals that are aimed at ameliorating that suffering?

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