Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2021-05-19
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

I think the private sector should look after itself. The Taoiseach is absolutely right: the State is the main mover in the housing market. While it is spending €3 billion, the problem is it is spending it on lining the pockets of the vulture funds, the cuckoos and the speculators. The vast majority of the money the State is putting in, which the Taoiseach just described, is going on the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, housing assistance payment, HAP, and leasing payments. It is not going into building our own stock of public housing because the State only managed to build 2,000 of its own local authority houses, while there were 15,000 new HAP tenancies last year with more on RAS and leasing arrangements. Now it gets even worse; the State is working with private developers to deliver the tenements of the 21st century, co-living, which the Government claims it has banned, but the State is investing with these private developers in it.
If we are paying for it anyway through tax breaks, through RAS, HAPs and leasing, and through investment from the strategic investment fund, we should cut out the bloodsuckers, cut out the middlemen and invest in providing our own stock of public and affordable housing. By the way, as the Government has not built a single affordable house, the Taoiseach should not peddle that myth.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:18+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-05-19