Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If the Tánaiste needs reminding, this is a practice that has removed from the market thousands of units, and equivalently thousands of houses, which could have been available to first-time buyers in 2018. Three thousand units might have been available to hard-working families who are struggling to get on the housing ladder and 3,000 units might have made a commute a lot shorter for hard-working people who are being forced to live farther from where they work, yet 3,000 people - and potentially 3,000 families - are being elbowed out of the housing market by corporate landlords with Government encouragement.

We are all aware that supply in the housing market is far below the desired level. There are not enough affordable houses being built. Not enough local authority houses are being built, yet, where housing is being built, the funds are sweeping in with the Government's encouragement to take them away from people who want to get on the housing ladder. The United Nations has excoriated this policy. It has spoken about the financialisation of housing in a damning report by one of its agencies. Ireland has been chosen as one of six countries where this practice is rampant.

Two hundred and ninety-five units in Leopardstown are affected, as are units in Dundrum and Citywest. Nearly every week, there seems to be another development. Is it not time to shout "Stop"? Is it not time to limit the ability of the funds to buy entire developments? Does the Government have any plans to review and restrict the taxation incentives that are available to the funds to use their corporate muscle to elbow out people who want to get into the housing market?

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