Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

What does the Taoiseach have to say to workers and their families today who are desperately trying to save to buy their own home? He can hardly tell them to stop complaining or to shop around. Cuckoo funds are outbidding household buyers by as much as 32%, paying on average €105,000 more per property than household buyers. Ordinary workers can shop around for an eternity, but increasingly they feel they are chasing shadows. They will never be able to outbid the cuckoo funds that are swooping in and snatching the homes they hope to buy. This is not just happening in the build-to-rent sector, the sector designed specifically by Government to be bought exclusively by cuckoo funds. Last year, these funds spent €2.27 billion acquiring nearly 5,000 properties for use in the private rental sector. In some cases, the funds are buying these homes and leasing them back to local authorities that reward them with guaranteed extortionate rents, in some cases for up to 25 years, before they get the keys back. Again, this has been deliberately facilitated by Government policy. The Government voted to slash the stamp duty for cuckoo funds if they leased the homes back to local authorities. We warned the Government at the time that this would be the result, but it went ahead anyway.

The head of research of BNP Paribas Real Estate Ireland, John McCarthy, has explained further that "[cuckoo funds] believe that rents are well underpinned by existing market imbalances and Ireland's demographic potential". In other words, the rental market is so utterly broken and dysfunctional, these funds do not believe that sky-high rents are going to come down any time soon. Ireland has a young population who are going to be condemned to continue to pay crippling rents for the foreseeable future.

Rents are now 50% higher than they were during the Celtic tiger peak. What level does the Taoiseach think is sustainable? In Dublin, rents went up by 4% in just the last three months of 2021. Nationally, year on year, they went up by 10%, with 20 counties seeing a double-digit increase. Rents increased by 25% in County Donegal. Meanwhile, the Government insists the rent caps, which are now set at a 2%, are working. It is plainly obvious the rent caps are not working. The Government has to be straight with people. Most people believe this is out of control. The Taoiseach is going to have to tell us how he will get control of this. Does he accept the Government has incentivised the disaster by rewarding the cuckoo funds with tax breaks for buying what would normally be family homes? Does he accept rent caps are not working? Will he immediately bring in a three-year ban on rent increases? We really need to see an eviction freeze. There is a serious problem with evictions coming down the track.

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