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

To summarise my point, the imperative to deliver social and affordable housing has to work all the way through the planning system. The Government has failed to deliver social and affordable housing. It is as simple as that. We have a dire crisis. It is not getting any better. In fact, rents and house prices are becoming more unaffordable by the day. Even when the Government trumpets its success with claims that commencements, construction and completions are increasing, and the famous mantra of supply, supply, supply, what is delivered is not affordable. In my area, the prices being asked are absolutely outrageous.

Unless the housing that is built is affordable, it will lead to the social cleansing of whole parts of Dublin. If it is not affordable, only big investors, very rich people and corporations will be able to buy or rent the homes. It is enraging to look at places like Cherrywood and see massive development happening while the people living beside it are blighted by the housing crisis, with two or three generations living in the same home because they cannot afford any housing, and are thinking of leaving the country. The housing is being built but people cannot afford to live there, right beside their family and community networks. It is enraging.

We can do something about this situation simply by saying that at least 50% of any housing built must be social and affordable and sports and community facilities must be delivered alongside it. Developers must not be allowed to wriggle out of their obligation to deliver those requirements, particularly when they benefit from huge amounts of public money to fund the infrastructure that makes their investment very profitable. That is happening in Cherrywood, which is the biggest residential development in the country. If we cannot get it right there, we will not get it right at all.

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