Gino Kenny blasts corporate landlords, demands rent control

Minister, landlords have never had it so good, the kind of phrase, and corporate landlords are having it really, really, really good, and obviously corporate landlords were brought here after the crash by Fianna Gael for one reason and one reason only, to make huge amounts of money, and that's what they're doing at the moment. They own huge portfolios of apartments, houses across the state, in some cases they're actually getting paid by the state, but at the same time they've got a huge reduction in relation to some of these houses. It's quite sickening when you see it, that these landlords, which there's a terrible, terrible legacy in this country, Minister, you know, the psyche of the Irish people. We fought against landlordism when the Brits were here, and we drove them out, but that psyche still, and that legacy still is here. The issue of one billion euros per year given to private landlords, that's indefensible. Money that literally is going to landlords privately, but not, you know, a fraction of that, half of that, could build hundreds, not thousands of houses, yet we continue this policy. And this policy, Minister, I know you're in the Green Party, but this policy is ideologically driven, right? The reason why we have a housing crisis, the reason why we have 11,000 people in emergency accommodation, is one reason, one reason only. It's because of ideology. It's because of leaving it to the market, and forgetting about the ideology of public housing. That's what it comes down to, and that's the reason why we have a housing crisis. That's the reason why all the kind of, the by-products of that, all the misery that comes with it. Now, I don't know if you can defend that, Minister. I don't know if you can. Because you're swimming with sharks, with Fianna Gale and Fianna Fáil. These people are kind of maniacs, that don't have no social conscience, when it comes to people that are in situations like this. In South Dublin County Council, where I'm from, the average three-bedroom house is 2,400 euros. Who the hell can afford that? An average working person, if they can afford that, are pinned to the collar. Or pinned to the collar, and they have very, very little money in relation to other kind of things in society. In relation to rent control, what's wrong with rent control? I think it's a good idea. If a particular area, where rents are so, so high, that the state says, look, you cannot, there's a certain level of the rent, of a rent that you can actually have in this area, or state, or whatever you want to call it. I think that's a good idea, and other countries have done it. So why can we not do it? Because if we don't do it, we let the free market run wild, and the invisible hand, as the free market says, cannot be touched. So I just don't understand why this is being allowed to happen. Just one final thing, Minister, in relation to rent pressure zones. I know these were introduced about five, six years ago. These were kind of an acceptance that there's an element, even though the rent pressure zones don't really actually work, but there was an acceptance by the state, by the government, that, you know, we have to kind of at least interfere somewhere in relation to rent control. They have failed. So we need to go beyond, you know, rhetoric, and we need to have rent control, where people have a standard of living, and not a kind of, as I said, situation where they're homeless, situation where they can't even find a place. This is not acceptable, Minister. And you really have to look at your own position in the government in relation to actually, you know, defending these policies, because that's what Fianna Gale and Fianna Fáil have been all about. That's why we have a crisis, because of ideology. Now, I don't know if you believe in that ideology.