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

We are dealing with a housing emergency. Most people recognise that. I hope the Government does. We need to dramatically increase the amount of housing we build, in particular social and affordable housing. Recently, Goodbody Stockbrokers produced a report showing that there are only five builders in this country capable of building more than 500 houses per year while the majority of the rest – 473 or so small contractors – can only build an approximate average of 34 houses per year each. The capacity is not there, and it is not going to be provided by those small builders.

How do we get young people, people who have come to this country and are now languishing in direct provision and people who have finished their apprenticeships but are leaving to go to Canada, Australia or wherever to go into construction? The State should go into the sector and make it attractive for them to move into construction. The State should ramp up apprenticeships and, unlike in previous construction booms or upswings, we should send the message that if people go into construction, they will not be landed on the dole at the next collapse because it has all been left up to the private market, but that there will instead be sustainable, secure and decent employment that the State will guarantee.

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