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

I move amendment No. 31:

In page 145, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following:“Report on tax revenue foregone

62. Within 6 months of the passing of this act, the Minister shall produce a report on the actual or estimated tax revenue foregone, specifically in the area of property investment, as a result of section 110 tax relief on such investments, dating back to investments made since 2012 up to the present and in any future years where the benefit of this tax relief might still accrue.".

I will be brief on this as we have discussed the topic quite a few times. The dog in the street knows extortionate profits are being made in the property sector currently. Much of this profit is being made by investors, asset management companies, vulture funds or however we might want to describe the likes of the real estate investment trusts. They were invited here, it is fair to say, to buy property-related debt from NAMA and some of the banks we bailed out. They bought vast amounts of property and building land at discount prices and they have now gained a major foothold in the Irish property sector, playing a very significant role in generating the current housing and homelessness emergency. They are engaged in wholesale property speculation, land hoarding and efforts to evict and de-tenant properties bought off NAMA. I have had to fight quite a few cases in my own area where Cerberus and Apollo Global Management have tried to evict people or get around rent caps. All they are doing is trying to ratchet up the values of those properties and rents to extortionate levels.

Most of these people, particularly the outside investors, will benefit from this section 110 tax loophole if they hold their investments for a specified period of seven years. As well as making profits from rents and capital gains, they will then pay no tax on it. We could not make up that stuff. It is absolutely shocking. The public needs to know about this. There are many losers in the housing and homelessness emergency but there is a small cohort of winners who are being facilitated by these kinds of tax loopholes and Government policy in general. It is wrong and utterly shocking that when asked how much tax is forgone on this, the Government cannot or will not tell us. It must be to the tune of billions of euro, without a shadow of doubt, if we consider what is happening in the rental and property sectors.

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