Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that. I know the Ceann Comhairle does not disagree with this because we have discussed it, but it further underlines the point about the change of the speaking order enforced by the Government, which guarantees this sort of uncertainty. The Government insists that it has multiple slots before some of us get to speak and then no one from the Government side bothers to turn up. It is further confirmation of the sabotage of debate in this House.

We will support this Bill because it provides for an extension of supports for those who have been hit as a result of the pandemic and whose incomes or livelihoods have been affected by public health measures. It goes without saying that we would support that, as we have done in the past. We will not try to block the passage of this Bill in any way because we want to see those supports extended. However, there are many things that should be in this Bill that are not. I will come to the stamp duty issue later. The measures in this Bill to prevent the cuckoo funds swooping in and buying large amounts of property and pricing ordinary people out of the market are tokenistic. I am not even sure they are actually designed to achieve what the Government says they are designed to achieve. I think they are designed to appease public opinion.

I will first speak to the income supports. The Minister of State might provide clarity on the following issue in his closing remarks. On multiple occasions, I have highlighted the need for support for particular groups that have been most hard hit or extremely hard hit by the pandemic and the public health measures, that is, musicians, performers, people in events and entertainment and taxi drivers. That is not an exhaustive list. I heard other Deputies mention travel agents and so on, but I know more about the musicians, events and performance side and taxi drivers.

I want to ask a straight question, but on the basis of past experience, I pretty much know the answer. Are the approximately 26,000 taxi drivers in this country and their families who depend on their income, which is a large cohort of people, once again excluded from the business supports under the small business assistance scheme for Covid and the Covid restrictions support scheme or will that change under the new business resumption support scheme? I had a look at the application form and information on the SBASC on the Department website. When one reads through the criteria for application a taxi driver could tick every box only to find that at the end of the form a statement that PSV drivers cannot apply for it. For no explicable reason, they cannot apply for it. It is open to many other businesses that are deserving of it, but taxi drivers are excluded. Has that changed? Will taxi drivers be eligible for the new scheme or are they once again excluded?

I remind the Minister of State, as I have reminded multiple other Ministers in this House, that according to an NTA survey in relation to taxi drivers, they are paying, on average, approximately €11,000 on fixed costs in terms of maintenance, car repayments, insurance and fuel and so on, which they are required to do in order that they can continue to operate, but which they have not been able to meet because their income has collapsed for the last year and a half. In that regard, there has been no full recovery and it is likely full recovery is even further away as a result of the decision to delay the full reopening of the hospitality sector, which is deeply connected to the viability of the taxi industry.

Will the business resumption support scheme be extended to taxi drivers or is the Government once again excluding them? If so, it begs the question as to what this Government has got against taxi drivers. When it comes to one group, despite the constant repetitions that there will be no cliff edge for those affected, which I heard again today from the Minister of State, there is a cliff edge in relation to the PUP. The Minister of State might clarify if that is the case. As the taxi drivers understand it, they are facing a cliff edge on the PUP, some of them from 7 September and others in early November, because if their PUP is reduced to €203, they are then required to sign on for jobseeker's allowance.

Taxi drivers cannot sign on for this allowance and so either must face the prospect of giving up their jobs and livelihoods to go on a jobseeker's payment or must sign off all supports, even though they are carrying all of the accumulated costs of the last year for which the Government has given them no support. Their industry is still not fully recovered so they cannot hope to earn a full living in September when those changes to the pandemic unemployment payment kick in. Will the Minister of State please clarify that point? According to what the Department of Social Protection is telling the taxi drivers, once they hit the level of €203, they will be informed that they have to go on jobseeker's allowance. This is despite other suggestions having been made by other Ministers to the effect that the PUP supports for taxi drivers should be maintained until February of next year. There is, therefore, a direct contradiction between what the Department of Social Protection is saying and what other Ministers have said about supports for taxi drivers.

Many of these same points apply in the case of musicians. Will musicians, performers and others who work in live entertainment be able to benefit from the business resumption support scheme or are there going to be further exclusions for people who do not have rateable premises, outward looking businesses and so on? Are they going to benefit from those supports? To date, the vast majority have not. Some who have premises and some of the bigger small companies or medium-sized companies in music and entertainment have benefited from some of the support schemes, and are very glad to have done so, but the ordinary jobbing individual or lone trader who is a musician, performer or similar has been excluded from the support schemes to date. Is that going to change with the new scheme proposed here? I fear and suspect it is not and that once again the Government has let down this cohort. I would like the Minister of State to tell me I am wrong.

I will move on to the issue of stamp duty. It is a very serious issue. The Government is well aware that there is absolute anger and outrage at the fact that these cuckoo funds are swooping in and buying whole estates, as they did in Kildare, north Dublin and other locales, pricing out the ordinary working family, young family, young couple or whoever else is trying to purchase a home. They can forget about it because these investment funds have swooped in and bought everything. On foot of the public outrage and anger about this, and the anger expressed by many of us in the Opposition, the Government said it was going to address the issue. However, it came out with only this token measure of a 10% rate of stamp duty. In no way will this act as a disincentive to these big super-wealthy investment funds. They can well absorb the increase to 10% from the 1% or 2% they might have paid in the past. They will pass it on in the price of the house or in the cost of a lease to a local authority. An increase to 10% is of no use. It is not a serious attempt to keep out these entities that have absolutely wrecked the housing market and which are also responsible for manipulating rental prices. In many cases, they are charging absolutely extortionate rents. We all know what these people are charging, which is €2,000, €2,500, €3,000 or more a month.

This 10% rate of stamp duty will not do it. We need to do what New Zealand has done and keep them out full stop. How would this be done? We proposed amendments when the Government previously tabled a motion on this issue and we will certainly be trying to amend this legislation. The rate of stamp duty should be set at 90%. It should be absolutely punitive and prohibitive if it is to completely stop them from being able to invest. The threshold should not be ten units as this implies it is okay if they buy up nine units, after which they will be hit with this token 10%. Instead, it should be 90% and should kick in if they buy more than one unit. If we are really trying to support ordinary working people who are trying to get a home to put over their own heads rather than investors who are simply trying to make money, we need to set stamp duty at a level so high that they would not dream of buying the properties and this needs to kick in if they try to buy more than one property.

It is also absolutely shocking that, in any event, even this token 10% will not affect those who buy properties before leasing them back to local authorities. It is unbelievable. It is bad enough that the local authorities are trying to source social housing from these cuckoo and investment funds which are charging absolutely extortionate prices, but we are now going to give them tax supports to do so. One has to suspect that the Government's change of heart and U-turn on what it was saying a few weeks ago is a direct result of lobbying by the cuckoo and vulture funds. In this legislation, the Government is quite literally dancing to the tune of these vulture, investment and cuckoo funds, that are doing nothing more than trying to profit from the housing and homelessness crisis and from the misery great numbers of working people in this country are facing.

Worst of all, none of this, not even the pathetic 10% rate of stamp duty, will apply to the purchase of apartments. Of course, this is the area in which these vulture funds, cuckoo funds and investment funds are most active. They buy up entire apartment blocks. They are doing it everywhere in this city. Some of their practices are absolutely nauseating. They buy up these blocks and do not even rent them out. They are quite happy just to sit on them. It is just an investment. They do not give a damn whether people can live in these places. They buy a block as an investment, watch their capital gains advance and then flog it off afterwards without paying any tax on the capital gains or, perhaps, rent the apartments out at extortionate rates. Some of the apartments around here are owned by Lone Star. The rents on them are €3,000 a month or more. It is absolutely shocking. The Government is going to allow that to continue.

What we need to do is to exclude these vultures from the market completely. We need to recover and rescue people from the situation in which we find ourselves as a result of the disastrous policies of NAMA which unloaded the property, sites and so on that put these cuckoo funds and investment funds in charge and in control of this country's dysfunctional housing market.

We will support these minimal measures and extensions insofar as they will support some people but it is really outrageous that no serious action is being taken to stop the rampage of the cuckoo funds and investment funds that are wrecking the housing market and contributing directly to the housing crisis working people are facing. It is also absolutely disgraceful if, as I suspect is the case, groups like taxi drivers, musicians and others who have been excluded from previous income and grant support schemes are to be excluded from the new scheme put forward in this Bill.

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