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

The Minister does not bother his backside to turn up for two housing debates in a row and the Government refuses to discuss for nine months the Housing Commission report which provided a damning indictment of the failures of Government housing policy. Why? It is because the Government does not want to solve the housing crisis. It does not care about the people who have been on housing lists for a decade or more or families and children in emergency accommodation, people who are quaking with fear because they are threatened with eviction. The Government does not care about them. The people it cares about are the corporate landlords, vulture funds and property investors. It is dancing to their tune and they do not want to solve the housing crisis because they make money from the housing crisis.

The sooner the people in this country who care about it and are affected by it realise that that is why we have had over a decade of a housing crisis and, before that, a property crash, the better. The emphasis is on "property", which has dominated this country, because the rich in Ireland and now their friends, international investors, make money from it. Why on earth would corporate landlords which can charge €2,500 a month want to see rental property which is charged at an affordable level for the average worker of €1,000 a month? It is self-evident that they would not want that to happen. They could not make profits if they did. Why would a property investor which is selling houses in my area on what used to be NAMA land for €600,000 want to sell them for €200,000, which would be affordable for an ordinary worker? They have no interest in that happening. They have an interest in making sure it does not happen. That is the problem.

It is summed up for me by a number of developments in my area. Niche Living is a co-living development on Eblana Avenue in Dún Laoghaire. We campaigned for social and affordable housing. We got a co-living development. It is now being advertised on booking.com for €1,000 a week for tourists. St. Helen's Court is an apartment block across from my office. Most of it has been empty for seven or eight years. They have evicted all the tenants and it is owned by vulture funds. They sit on it, waiting to evict the tenants, ramp up the value of the asset and then flip it on. That is who the Government is representing. It is not representing ordinary people. We need a revolution in this country on the issue of housing because you lot do not care.

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