Richard Boyd Barrett: Government doesn't want to solve housing crisis

It's obvious the government doesn't want to solve the housing crisis. They've dropped the pretense, they've no targets, they are curtailing tenants in situ, they've always resisted rent controls, and their homelessness figures continue to rise, they do absolutely nothing about it, they don't want to stop the flow into homelessness, they're planning to remove even the minimal rent controls, they don't want to solve the housing crisis. And the truth about the government's housing policy was revealed in the White House in the exchange between Donald Trump and Micheal Martin, when Trump said that the housing crisis in this country was a sign of success, and the Taoiseach said, good answer. I hadn't thought on that one. Now why does Trump think it's a success? He's a property speculator, he's a billionaire, he's a landlord. He makes money when house prices and rents are high, when there's a shortage of housing and when there's poor quality housing. That's how they make money. That's how the rich in this country make money. That's how the property investors make money. They have no interest in solving the housing crisis. In fact, they have an interest in making sure that we don't solve the housing crisis, because if there was a supply, an adequate supply of affordable housing built on a not-for-profit basis, they couldn't make profit. That's the simple truth. And that is why you resist every measure to address the housing crisis. Because you're there to represent the landlords, the property speculators, the developers, the Trumps of this world and their Irish equivalents. That's what your government is. That's what you're doing. And that was revealed in the White House. And you can even see from the lack of energy in the Minister's speech, read off the script, we don't flippin' care anymore. We're droppin' the pretense that we're trying to solve this. And that also relates to defective buildings, poor quality buildings, because, you know, it's profitable, isn't it, for the people who build houses to cut corners. Don't put in fire breaks, don't put in proper materials, don't check the houses in case they turn out to be defective, because it would cut in to their profits. Greed, greed, greed. And that's what Jews represent, and ordinary people are suffering. It also relates to another issue I'd like to raise, again, about the thresholds. You know now, if you're on working family payment, you're working, that can take you over the threshold for social housing. Thousands and thousands of working people, who go out, work, work hard, pay their taxes, taken off the housing list, after 10 or 15 years waiting, whether they're on a worker family payment, or just because they get a pay rise, or they do a bit of overtime, and it's gone. And they have no chance whatsoever, and they're trapped in homelessness, or trapped in squalid conditions, multiple generations living in poor quality housing. I've raised again and again and again. It also affects, actually, the attitude in councils, because they want people to live in squalid conditions, because they want to say, oh, we can't make it easy for you to have a decent house. I've been fighting cases in Sally Noggin, in Shank Hill now, people living in crappy quality housing, because you don't believe housing, secure and affordable and decent, is a right. It is a right, but the profit-hungry developers that you represent make money from it, so you don't want to do anything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.