Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is crazy. You could not make up that there is a massive underspend in housing while we are in the middle of the biggest housing crisis we have ever seen. In my time in politics and doing the clinics I have never seen people in such distress as they are in at present. Quite simply, there is not enough supply. It is known that there would not be a supply because those in the private household domestic market where people had a second house, were in it as a business or were accidental additional property owners after they inherited a house are getting out.

Why are they getting out? They are getting out because they are being demonised in here. There are people shouting them down all of the time. They are paying 56% tax and they are providing a service, the same as any other person providing a service. The very people who are shouting about them in here are serial objectors. We have individual Deputies in this Dáil who have been here since 2020 and who have objected to over 5,000 homes being built in their constituency. That is not normal behaviour and it has to be called out here. It is abnormal behaviour. If a person in this House objects to 2,800 homes, that is also abnormal. It is not a proper thing for an elected representative to be doing. It has to be called out for what it is, which is the worst type of hypocrisy. These individuals are saying that they want houses but they object to houses at the same time because they do not want them as they are being built by the private market. Of course, we all want social and affordable homes. We all want the voluntary housing agencies to have more and more housing but there has to be a private market as well. They must stop demonising those people because there is no good to be got out of it.

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