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

It is obvious that the Taoiseach is running away from a debate on the report by the Housing Commission, which we have been asking about for weeks. One of the major contributors to the report was the NESC. It gave a presentation to the commission in March 2023, which referred to the need to engineer permanent affordability into housing policy. NESC referred to the housing policy as dysfunctional and said that an emergency response was required. It also said that we needed the active managing of land for the public good. This morning, the Taoiseach refused a debate on the report of the Housing Commission before the recess and at the same time, we got an announcement that the Taoiseach has signed a legal order which will waive the requirement for social and affordable housing on a site like the one on Aungier Street, which is in public ownership. This repeats the ongoing policy of the Government, handing over land or responsibility for dealing with housing crisis to the market and to private for-profit interests. When is the Government going to change tack and at least debate the issues about the report of the Housing Commission?

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