Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

This amendment is a sneaky one. The Taoiseach has denied that that is the case. He has told the Dáil twice now, I think, that he indicated that this would be the case when vulture funds were being debated nine weeks ago. Well, if the Taoiseach did give an indication at the time, it was so cryptic and so far beneath the radar that no Opposition Deputy, alert and all as we were, no journalist in this country, alert and all as they are, and no member of the public following the debate noticed it. There is a reason for this. The reason is that the Government was on the ropes nine weeks ago when the vulture funds crisis erupted and, if the Taoiseach had said then what the Minister is saying now, while I am not saying it would have necessarily been a knockout blow to the Government, it would have put it into a far deeper crisis. Now, however, the Government feels that the heat of public opinion on that issue has lifted a little and it is able to show its colours and reveal the arrangements it has put in place now for the vultures. It is a sneaky amendment, and the Government did not have the guts or the courage to nail its colours to the mast nine weeks ago because it knew there would have been consequences for it had it done so. That is the first point.

The second point is that there are winners and losers here. The Government says people on the local authority list who are housed will be winners. We will come to that in a second. Certainly, the vulture funds are winners. They will not enter into lease arrangements without ensuring their own pound of flesh and, as it stands, they will be able to walk away with their properties in, what is it, ten years, did the Minister say? The losers will be the ordinary taxpayers of this country because they will shell out over and above the odds for these arrangements.

What about the people on the social housing waiting lists who get housed? There are other ways of housing them. There is a simple proposal. Deputy Boyd Barrett has outlined it. Let the Minister explain to the House his reasons for not opting for it. The proposal is that the local authorities bulk-buy the houses directly themselves, cut out the vulture fund middle man, house the people on the social housing waiting lists and save the taxpayer a pretty penny. That is the alternative. The Minister should explain to the House why he is not prepared to go down that road.

I am very interested in one point the Taoiseach has raised and which I think the Minister has repeated this evening. I am not sure about that last point, but certainly the Taoiseach has raised it. It is that the people who will end up owning the homes will not be the vulture funds walking away with their assets but the State. We are being asked to vote for this - I will not vote for it in any case - on the basis of that promise. That is a pig in a poke. The Government should put a little detail on that promise and explain to the House and to the people watching this debate how the Government will ensure that the State ends up owning those houses. Will the State nationalise them without compensation? Will the State nationalise them at cost price? Will the State buy them off the vulture funds at a cost considerably above their real value, making more profit for the vulture funds from the sale? The Government should not leave this vague. Let the Government give us the details on this.

I will conclude my remarks because we need to allow time to vote on this amendment. It will be an important vote.

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