Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste needs to get real. He lives in this city and he should understand what is happening. Six of seven homes in this city are apartments, 95% of which have been bought up by institutional funds. They are able to do that because the Tánaiste, when Taoiseach, along with the then Government, introduced sweetheart deals that allow the sky high rents of €2,500 per month, which they are charging ordinary, hard-pressed families, to go tax-free. That is why they are able to do it. The Government has now exempted them from the higher level of stamp duty despite the most senior official in the Department charged with drafting this legislation saying it could potentially drive individual purchasers out of the market due to the lack of availability. This is eyes wide open stuff. The Tánaiste and his party are deliberately locking out individuals from home ownership in relation to apartments. The opportunity the Tánaiste had will not be available to people in Dublin at this point in time because the investors are snapping them up.

I will give another example. There are three sites across Dublin on which there will be 400 homes, not one of which will come on the market. We will see more of this. To make things worse-----

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