Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The cost of purchasing a home has been pushed up further and further in recent years and has made it impossible for many workers and families, who have saved every euro they could, to buy their first home. A major contributor is the fact that investment funds have been allowed to come in and bulk-purchase homes from developers. Most recently, an investment fund bulk-purchased 85% of homes in a new housing development in Dublin. This is in no way an issue in Dublin alone. Investment funds have brought up many properties in Cavan town, in my constituency, and are renting them back to owners and families who could never compete with them to purchase the property themselves. It has left the workers and families at the mercy of these investment funds. In 2022, the residents in one apartment block owned by one of the funds received a written notice that their rents were set to be increased, in some cases by over 50%. Bulk-purchasing by investment funds has been happening for years and is a direct consequence of Government policy. The Government is responsible for enabling it. It has to stop because workers and families simply cannot compete with large investment funds and are being priced out. We need tax changes to ensure workers, families and struggling homebuyers are not priced or pushed out of the market by investment funds. Sinn Féin has been calling for this for years.

In 2021, in response to pressure from Sinn Féin, the Government introduced stamp duty of 10% on the bulk-purchase of homes by investment funds. However, this new rate excluded apartments. At the time, Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson, Pearse Doherty, warned that the Minister had set a stamp duty charge so low it could not act as an effective deterrent. This has proven to be the case. The Government has to get to grips with this. It must implement a more punitive tax of at least 17% of the purchase of homes, including apartments, by investment funds to stop this from happening.

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