Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Three and a half thousand children are forced to spend Christmas in emergency accommodation, some for the second Christmas, some for the third and some even for the fourth. It costs €20,000 per year to rent a house in Cork city and €25,000 per year in Dublin. The price of a house has gone up by more in one year than the annual wage of many a young worker. A generation of young people cannot afford to buy or rent and are forced to live at home with their parents or emigrate.

Could the Minister answer a couple of questions? Why, when apartment starts were down 29% in the three months up to October and housing starts are down 23%, does the Minister not step up public housebuilding and make a case for it to be key? Why does he not shut down the nonsense of gifting developers more tax breaks? Why did he appoint an individual to the board of the Housing Finance Agency when the Standards in Public Office Commission made a significant ruling against that person? I have no confidence that the Minister, the rest of the Government and the capitalist market will solve the housing crisis. They are all part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

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