Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister of State. Unlike many EU member states, Ireland does not currently have a regime for screening FDI in key infrastructure. The Bill aims to address this by providing the Government with powers to protect security or public order from hostile actors using ownership of or influence over businesses and assets to harm the State. It is quite a technical Bill but very relevant to the current global situation. It introduces a screening process which allows the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to regulate FDI from countries outside the EU and the EEA in key Irish industries and sectors. It creates a mandatory notification obligation for parties, third country transactions and other activities with a value of €2 million or more in designated sectors which result in a change of control of an asset or undertaking in Ireland. The Bill will provide the Government with the powers to protect security or public order from hostile actors using ownership of or influence over businesses and assets to harm the State. It will empower Ministers to respond to threats to Ireland's security or public order posed by particular types of foreign investment and to prevent or mitigate such threats.

One area that needs urgent attention is the lack of oversight of EU and foreign capital that is being used to invest in the Irish housing market. Unfortunately, the Government rolls out the red carpet for institutional investors to distort our housing market. Sinn Féin in government will prioritise ordinary workers, their families and our older people. We will take the red carpet from institutional investors and roll it out for the working poor and those who have to emigrate if they want to secure an affordable, rentable home under this Government, let alone the chance to own their own home. We cannot have a Government that cares more for tax-avoiding real estate investment trusts, REITs, than it does for the people who contact me daily, who languish at the bottom of housing lists with little hope of securing one of the two properties within the housing assistance payment, HAP, limits currently available in Kildare. There is a lack of oversight for investment from companies and countries that have extremely poor workers' rights or human rights records. Consumers are leading the way and the Government needs to follow.

See this speech in context