Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Minister to let me explain this to him. It is not about apartments. He exempted every single apartment from this stamp duty charge. This is about homes. He exempted funds that are buying full housing estates if there was a forward purchase arrangement already in place. That is the point. It is nothing to do with apartments, every one of which is exempt in any case under his policy. This is about people buying homes. It is about what happened in Maynooth being allowed to happen again.

The Minister has no idea how many such agreements are in place. He could read the reports published online that would give him some detail in this regard. His answer speaks volumes in that it shows he did not even look for that information or want to find it out. He came before this House and said that every single forward purchase agreement for homes will be exempt where a contract has already been entered into, as will every such project that completes over the next few months. This is being done because the reality is that Fine Gael did not want to go here in any case. It was dragged, kicking and screaming to this place where it had to introduce a minimum stamp duty. The provision in question will not make much of a difference because, if the rent yield is increased by approximately 10%, it will nullify the small stamp duty increase the Minister has imposed on only a certain section of homes.

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