Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

There is something profoundly undemocratic about what the Government is planning to do on housing. We have just had an election campaign during which Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael told us Housing for All was working and that the evidence for that was the 40,000 homes that were going to have been built last year. The Government was deliberately misleading people. It knew and had been told that the figure would be only 30,000. During that election campaign, where was the mention of scrapping rent pressure zones, the new tax incentives for developers or the pivot to the private sector, which we are now told is the new key to resolving the crisis? Once the election is out of the way, what we see is shock and awe for a full corporate takeover of the housing market.

The previous Government, to be clear, was a Government of landlords, by landlords, for landlords, but with a veneer of concern for the needs of renters, people who want to buy a home and those who are suffering from homelessness. With this Government, that veneer is gone. The biggest landlord in this Dáil is now a Minister in the Government, as is the second biggest landlord. It is absolutely naked class rule for landlords, big corporate developers and so on. It is fundamentally ideological to be throwing money at the private sector regardless of the fact that does not deliver housing and has not done.

It is time, after more than a decade of failure to address the housing crisis, to conclude that the Government does not want to address the housing crisis; the Government wants to deepen the housing crisis so that those it represents can get even richer. That is why, when the Taoiseach said we are moving towards scrapping the rent pressure zone, IRES REIT share prices went through the roof. The Irish Property Owners Association declared itself delighted, which is no wonder, but do not worry, the Taoiseach said, they will not expire until the end of the year so we will have loads of time to talk about how we can best incentivise landlords and property developers. Talk about being completely insulated from the reality of what it is to rent for renters with the constant fear of no-fault eviction, homelessness, and then putting this on them to worry about for the next 11 months. Will the only protection for renters be taken away? Renters need to take to the streets, wipe the smile of their face and go in the opposite direction. Freezing and reducing rents to make them affordable and capping rents at a quarter of people's income are the only sort of changes we will accept.

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