Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

The Minister is going to go down in history for having introduced a new principle of economics. It is called shrinkflation. It is the idea you can reduce the price of something by reducing the size of something. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. The price of milk has gone up almost 14% in the last year. Imagine a milk producer said people should not worry because producers are going to cut the price of milk by 50% and do it by cutting the size of a pint in half. People would laugh at any proposer of that, but it is what the Minister is suggesting.

It is interesting that his response did not deal with any of the substantive criticisms of his proposals from industry professionals and that failure to respond speaks volumes. It is all very well for the Minister to say he has the Attorney General's advice, because Simon Coveney had the Attorney General's advice with strategic housing developments and Eoghan Murphy had the Attorney General's advice on the use of the section 28 guidelines on apartment standards and building heights in 2018 but the combination of those led to a dramatic surge in judicial reviews and delays to much-needed homes. I am flabbergasted the Minister has not taken that into account.

The Minister has to publish the LDA’s advice. We are very persistent over here. We will get it. We will get it by freedom of information, by parliamentary question or some other way, so the Minister should save his officials spending time having to respond to me every second day and publish it. If he is so confident that data proves his case he should publish it. What has happened is this Government’s housing policy has been in a tailspin since it was caught out on its housing delivery last year. The single largest lobby group for institutional investors, namely, Irish Institutional Property, has been in and out of Government Buildings like a yo-yo in the last few months, according to the lobbying register. Who is the head of Irish Institutional Property? Who is on the lobbying register, a public document? It is the former general secretary of the Minister’s party, Pat Farrell. Who is lobbying Pat Farrell to lobby the Minister for tax breaks, higher rents and reduction of standards? It is the large institutional investors. This is not going to work. It is not going to increase supply. It is not going to tackle viability. All it is going to do is punish renters and lead to poor-quality urban developments into the future and that will be on the Minister. Shrinkflation does not exist. It is a mirage. I will be pressing the amendment to the amendment.

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