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

That is correct. It is just not good enough for the people. Believe me, we are engaging with the local authority. Sometimes that helps us get solutions, but more often than not, it does not. So many people are falling through the cracks and that number is growing all the time. It is just not good enough. I am not going to describe motives or anything else, but I do think there is politics involved. The Government is labouring under the illusion that at some point, if the supply of public and private houses reaches a certain level, rents or house prices will go down. That is not going to happen unless there is a crash. That is the only way that will happen. Does the Minister honestly believe the private sector will let prices go down? It will stop building before it does that. The private sector will not let rents or house prices go down. If the Government is labouring under that illusion, it is a mistaken illusion that will not happen.

The public sector has to ramp up, on a massive scale, the direct provision of public and social housing. By the way, I supported all those projects and never opposed one of them. What I do oppose is the wasting of human labour building properties that no one can afford. We were 100% behind the Cherrywood development, which could have solved the entire south Dublin housing problem. We tried to fight for more social and affordable housing. The problem is, even though that one development could solve the entire south Dublin housing crisis, it will not because all of it will be unaffordable. We were campaigning for 15 years for the development in Shanganagh, where we only got the sod turned this week. Meanwhile, there are fellas building co-living apartments for rent at €1,300 a month, in which you would not put a dog. They were built and that is the problem.

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