Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. It is important that we tackle tender rigging, which is a scam and drives up prices. Unfortunately, the Government does not seem to have the same inclination to end bid rigging in the private housing market. Ordinary working families and individuals are trying to buy homes every day but they are being outbid by cuckoo funds. One in five homes in Cork city is being bought by non-owner occupiers, many of which are global companies that are using the housing crisis to profit. The average rental price for a two-bedroom property in Cork is double what it would cost to buy the same property. How can that be right? Ordinary people are losing out because the Government is allowing institutional investment funds to buy up the properties that people need to live in and that they want to buy themselves. The Government is doing nothing to protect people. This matter needs to be examined.

I wish to discuss the mortgage-to-rent scheme. In 2018, there was a decision to allow a private operator, Home for Life, to essentially claim a monopoly on the scheme. Home for Life is the only private operator licensed in the market and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has confirmed that he does not intend to reopen the licensing application process. Home for Life is buying distressed mortgages and then leasing the respective homes for 25 years to local authorities. The homeowner remains in the property and becomes a local authority tenant. At the end of the 25 years, the local authority will have to find housing for that tenant and Home for Life will own the property even though the State has paid its rent for 25 years. More than 500 of these long-term leases have been completed since 2018.

This is a local authority scheme that does not need private investment. If we continue to rely on just one private operator, and assuming the investment patterns do not change, a conservative estimate is that the State could be looking at local authorities forking out €120 million over the next 25 years. This situation will be compounded year on year and not a single house will be owned by the State. It is a scandal. The mortage-to-rent scheme was set up for local authorities to buy the distressed mortgages of homeowners who could not repay their loans. Why was a private company allowed to make unbelievable profits on the backs of people who were losing their homes?

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