Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

For some time, the NESC has been calling for fundamental policy changes on urban development and housing provision . These are sentiments that are often endorsed by the Taoiseach and other Ministers. However, for the homeless, the renters and the first-time buyers, it feels like Groundhog Day.

It was reported in The Irish Timesyesterday that on the question of introducing a stamp duty intervention in respect of the cuckoo and vulture funds, the Government stated it is hard to put a timeframe on action.

Why is there paralysis and lethargy in moving on this issue? I believe the Government is very worried about spooking the cuckoo. As it does not want to spook the international investors or the vulture funds, it claims we must move carefully and slowly. The last thing we need to do is to move carefully and slowly. We do need to spook and frighten them and to make sure that they know that the game is up and they can no longer suck the life and blood out of people in this country who are on waiting lists, young people who are trying to buy their own homes and people who cannot afford to rent. The Government's slowness to take action against the cuckoo funds and the introduction of measures to stop the wholesale purchase of estates and apartments is symptomatic of the paralysis of the Government now and for the past decade in dealing with the housing crisis.

Will the Government do as the NESC has advised, and actually begin to "bring about fundamental change in its system of urban development, land management and in housing provision" and start by using its authority to stop the immediate purchase of land by corporate investors in homes and the utilisation of public land by private developers? We need sustainable development, not the sort of development that we are seeing all over constituencies like mine that are expanding under the guise of strategic housing developments. We cannot sustain it. Communities cannot sustain thousands and thousands of apartments without schools, infrastructure and planning. They should come first - not the apartments. Otherwise, the Government will break the communities around this city.

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