Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is no comfort to the people in Portmarnock in the Minister's constituency or in Adamstown in mine, who today will not be able to avail of any of these homes because they have been purchased by an institutional investor. In the same article in theIrish Independent, the fund said that "it is irrelevant what we pay for them." It does not matter that the Government has increased stamp duty by a modest 8%. These funds will make such a return at current market rents over the 50-year period that this fund, for example, says it will remain at these locations, that a modest increase in stamp duty will be quickly recouped by higher rents. Likewise, the planning changes the Minister has introduced in the main will only apply to future planning applications. The 80,000 live planning applications that are in the system are open game for these institutional investors. In terms of what is coming down the pipeline this year, next year and the year after, the Minister's measures have failed. Again I ask him what he can say to reassure those people looking to buy such properties in our constituencies that the measures he undertook last year are having any impact in squeezing out these funds.

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