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

Will the Taoiseach be a bit more precise as to when the constitutional referendum on housing will take place and what exactly it will propose? If we have such a referendum, will it be matched by a willingness on the part of the Government to make use of it? One of the purposes of having such a referendum is that we could do things such as introduce rent controls, do something about land hoarding and speculation and protecting tenants rights, all of which the Government is not really willing to do. In fact, most of the time the Government seems to be hell-bent on allowing developers to charge obscene rents and, judging from the earlier conversation we had, promoting the right of developers to put in planning applications for totally unaffordable developments that they often do not build and which actually take up land and labour that could be used to develop public and affordable housing. Will the Taoiseach match the commitment to have a referendum with actually taking measures to challenge the profiteering by corporate landlords, speculators and land hoarders and prioritise instead people's need for affordable housing?

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