Ivana Bacik (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I remind Senator Fitzpatrick that I did not interject during her contribution. As Senator Moynihan said, people in Fianna Fáil need to take a good, hard look at themselves.

The real issue here is what was not done over the four years from 2016 to 2020, when the country was economically prospering and the then Government, in which Fine Gael was propped up by Fianna Fáil, failed to prioritise the provision of housing. We are now addressing the legacy of those four wasted years. There have been huge difficulties for construction in the past year because of the Covid crisis but those four wasted years are critical to what is happening now. Housing supply should have been prioritised in that period by a Government that, let us not forget, suffered in the February 2020 election because it failed to deliver on housing, particularly social and affordable housing. It is really disappointing to have to listen to lectures and political point-scoring when we are debating such an important issue. We did not indulge in it and it is unfortunate, to say the least, to hear it from others. Senator Moynihan is a very powerful advocate on housing, as we are all aware. Our party, the Labour Party, has a very proud tradition of delivery at local and national level on public and affordable housing. We will not take lectures from others on this issue.

The question of affordability is crucial. It is not just about the purchase cost of houses or apartments but also rental costs. Senator Boyhan spoke eloquently about security of tenure for those who are renting. The issue of market value is crucial in regard to rents because we are finding, with the huge dominance of investment funds and institutional purchasers of apartments across Dublin in particular, that there is an artificial inflation of the market value of rents. I have spoken before about seeing blocks of beautiful, recently built and furnished apartments lying empty, with the plastic sheeting still on the mattresses. The institutional investors are holding on to those apartments to keep the rents artificially inflated. That is what constitutes market value in a market dominated by a small number of large investors that are able to keep rents artificially high and thereby price people out of renting properties they would love to have as homes. Senator Boyhan is right that we are talking about homes and not just housing. It is about people wanting to have their own home. It is not just a question of houses or apartments; it is a question of homes. That is what is important here and it is very disappointing to see any attempt at cheap political point-scoring.