A video of a Dublin landlord apparently boasting about how he makes €5,000 a month from a former council house in Clondalkin garnered plenty of attention on Tuesday.
In the video, Joe Doyle said that two families, eight people in total, lived in the house and that he charged one family an extra €100 a month for keeping a dog.
"It's a little bit cramped but hey, lookit, that's not my problem," he said.
"Business is business. I wouldn't live in the estate myself, it's a bit of a dive. You know, throw the tenants in, pack them tight and collect the money."
Doyle appeared on RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Sarah McInerney on Wednesday morning and said that the video was "satire" and a marketing ploy for his business.
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"It's absolute satire," said Doyle.
SMC: Is it funny?
JD: I find it funny, yeah. My friends found it funny.
It continues:
SMC: Do you think the 23 tenants who were packed into a three-bed house in Rathmines would find it funny, a bit of craic or would they find it hurtful, insensitive?
JD: I have no idea how they'd find it.
SMC: Did you think about that?
JD: No. Not at all.
SMC: Does it matter to you that we're in the middle of a housing crisis and there are many thousands of people around the country living in very difficult sub-standard accommodation and who would be looking at that video and be very hurt, angry and upset by it? Did you think about them or do you care about them?
JD: I didn't give it any thought whatsoever. That was satire. It was part of an experiment that we were doing for our marketing. I do a lot of marketing online. I make videos the last number of years about business and investment.
We've got a big announcement coming in the next couple of weeks. We said, 'What's going to get us more attention: outrage, free world class business advice or free cash?' We did three tests and we're here today talking purely about the outrage that was caused from the outrage video.
SMC: Yeah. You look delighted with yourself about it,
JD: Yeah. At least I know no what gets most attention; what gets most bang for your buck in advertising.
SMC: As far as you are concerned it's OK, acceptable and should even be encouraged to make fun of people who are living in very difficult situations in order to further your own business?
JD: I didn't make fun of anybody personally there. It's satire.
SMC: You made fun of the living situations that many people find themselves in.
JD: That video is so ridiculously out there that it could not possibly be true.
SMC: That's the thing. That's the problem. It could be true. It is true. There were 23 tenants living in a three-bed house in Rathmines in 2017. Prime Time found them and we saw video of the disgusting, difficult situation they were living in.
JD: Would you be putting me or a landlord in the same bracket as the culprits that ran that operation?
SMC: Well, it was a landlord - they were being paid for providing the accommodation.
JD: It's someone like that who brings shame on my industry, who goes and rents 23 people one flat. That's not something I would interact with. Landlords and other people I would interact with on a daily basis, that's not them.
SMC: I'm not suggesting that you're involved in doing what that landlord was doing. I'm asking if you think it's OK to make fun of those people's living conditions? Becuase they are desperate, because they have no other choice, they don't have enough money to find proper accommodation. It's really abuse and extortion of those people. Do you think it's acceptable to use their situations to further your own business?
JD: I didn't use it. It's a joke. If somebody wants to be outraged by it. That's fine. They can be outraged.
SMC: You were banking on people being outraged by it.
JD: Half the people thought it was hilarious, the other people wanted to be outraged. That's fine.
Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said that he did not accept that Doyle's video was satire, adding "If it was an experiment or if it was a joke, I think it was a very distasteful one".
In response, Doyle said:
JD: A concern for me would be this elected representative spreading this news without doing any fact-checking at all. That would cause concern for me. Do we all that our elected representatives tell us now or do we have to go and check every single thing?
SMC: What do you mean spreading this news?
JD: Eoin was spreading this news. It's clearly satire. It's clearly mentioned on all of my platforms.
All of my platforms said in advance what we were going to do. Most people checked it. They knew what was going on. Eoin seemed to jump on the bandwagon.
At the same time, if it brings this discussion to the forefront, it's an important discussion.
SMC: What discussion?
JD: The discussion of the homeless crisis.
SMC: I don't really understand. On the one hand, you're making fun of the homeless crisis and people being in desperate situations. Now you're saying you want to bring the discussion to the forefront.
JD: I didn't say that I wanted to bring it to the forefront. That wasn't my intention. If it brings it to the forefront, what's the harm?
