Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The 2017 figure is misleading because we are talking about the window between about 2012 and the point at which the change was made in 2016. It was in this period that NAMA flogged off most of its land and assets, about €40 billion worth. It was not the little accidental landlord buying the stuff from NAMA; it was Kennedy Wilson, Cerberus, Lone Star and all these big boys. They swooped in on Irish land and property assets. Did they solve the housing crisis, as Deputy Noonan predicted they would, and create a new professional landlord sector? That is what Deputy Noonan said at the time. Not at all. They sat on their assets and will get huge tax relief. In many cases they just sit on the land; in some cases they are sitting on empty property. I know of two such cases and have highlighted them twice in here. Cerberus and Apollo Global Management are trying to de-tenant property and are just sitting on perfectly good empty apartments because they are watching the value clock up and they know they will walk away without paying any tax.

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