Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. Fianna Fáil's response to this crisis would be laughable if it was not so serious. It was summed up in a tweet by Fianna Fáil MEP, Billy Kelleher, who effectively pointed to what was happening in Maynooth and said "something" must be done but this is Fianna Fáil's policy. It is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael policy to incentivise the vulture and cuckoo funds to come in here. Now that the chickens are coming home to roost, the approach of Fianna Fáil is to wring its hands and say that something must be done while simultaneously not doing what obviously needs to be done in terms of excluding these funds from the housing sector. This week we learned that not only is the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage refusing to ban these cuckoo funds, he was actually an early investor in the cuckoo funds. No wonder he would not evict the vultures; he is one himself.

Fundamentally, the housing crisis comes down to a very simple question, namely, which side are you on? Are you on the side of those struggling to pay rising rents or the corporate landlords making a killing with unprecedented income? Are you on the side of those trying to buy their first home or the cuckoo funds buying up whole estates? Are you on the side of the half a million young people still stuck at home or of the developers who are making massive profits? Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael policy has been to invite, encourage and incentivise these vultures into the so-called housing market to turn this country into a cuckoo land.

The outpouring of anger over the last week should be just the beginning. We need a mass movement on housing to scrap all the tax incentives offered to REITs and other investment vehicles and ban them from buying up housing here. Instead of a Government that serves the interests of the landlords, vultures and cuckoos, we need a left Government with socialist policies that will take on the vultures, kick them out and serve the interests of working-class people.

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