Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

This latest housing plan is not worth the paper it is written on. Like all other failed plans from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, this will only make the housing crisis worse. It will only make people's lives harder. It will lead to more misery for anyone trying to put a roof over their head so that a small few can make bigger profits. Smaller, darker, more expensive homes; that is this Government's plan. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are serving the interests of people who are profiting from the housing crisis. In my own county of Donegal, 80 council houses are lying empty because of defective blocks. There is no plan from the Government. They are just lying empty. It is disgraceful. Fine Gael's record in government is clear. Since it came into office, the number of people under the age of 40 who own their own home has been cut in half. Fianna Fáil joining in has only made matters worse. Today, 180 landlords own 56,000 homes in this State. The Government has ripped up home ownership and ripped it away from a whole generation to drive them into the arms of corporate landlords. In the last five years, these big landlords have doubled the number of properties they own. We have seen them hoovering up homes. They have outbid people at every turn. Workers watch on as house prices are pushed out of reach.

The Government is trying to spin a yarn that there is not enough money in housing. It churns out industry nonsense for big developers, the same big developers that are making super-profits. The biggest players have 20% gross profit margins. They are talking such a big cut that it would make the banks and the insurance industry blush. The Government looked at these obscene profits and decided to hand the developers more. It handed them massive tax breaks in this year's budget. Every worker will be worse off next year in order that developers can make more money. Shame on the Government. It wants us to believe that higher rents, higher house prices and bigger profits are going to solve the housing crisis, but that is not the case. While Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael remain in government, the housing crisis is only going to get worse. More and more people become homeless. Young people emigrate. Lives are put on hold. People's hard-earned wages are handed over to landlords and banks. All of that will continue until we take back control and start building homes working people can afford to own.

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