Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, support this reasonable amendment on real estate investment trusts and Irish real estate funds or, to use their acronyms, REITs and IREFs. The Government and its predecessors appear set on preserving the status quoand supporting the rich and famous at the expense of ordinary citizens. This beggars belief after all we have been through and the rape and plunder visited on us by the banking scandal, the National Asset Management Agency and the vulture funds. While REITs and IREFs are not vulture funds, they are of the same species.

I hate mentioning names but we brought a mercenary into the Department of Finance who has since left these shores again and moved on to the next rich pickings. We should have looked at the stables he was in, although I objected at the time of his appointment and referred in the House to the trail of destruction he had left behind him in the United States. The Minister for Finance invited him back to lead us here. This was all part of his dream.

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