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

People Before Profit argued that the entire development should be social and affordable. We eventually won out against the resistance of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, but it has taken 17 years to finally deliver - they have still not been delivered - the social and affordable housing on that site. What we are saying is that we should supplement the lack of capacity in the private sector, so do not play at this either-or business. We are saying, and Goodbody is arguing, that private builders and developers do not have the capacity and that we need to ramp up our housing delivery and to deliver social and affordable housing, which your Government is failing to do. It missed its social targets, it missed its affordable targets and it is self-evident that the housing being built by the private sector is unaffordable. The average house price is €327,000; in my area it is €620,000. The average rent in Dún Laoghaire is now €2,400; in Dublin in general it is €2,200.

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