Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister appears to tell us about the changes to section 110 and the fact that some of the investors will actually pay some tax, but he is ignoring the fact that the REITs, provided they share 85% of the dividends with their investors, pay no tax on their rental income, nor do they pay any capital gains tax if they stay for at least five years. In January 2014 I challenged the then Minister for Finance on the fact that these organisations and entities were going to cause serious problems in the rental market. He said they only held €400 million worth of assets and that we should worry about them when they got bigger. Now they hold billions of euro worth of assets and we do not yet seem to be worrying about them. The truth of the matter is that they have seriously unbalanced the rental market. They are about to launch a scheme of apartments on the south side and are looking for €1,900 a month or more for one-bedroom apartments. It has gone off the Richter scale and the Minister is not controlling them. He has ignored his responsibility in that regard.

See this speech in context