Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Doherty and Sinn Féin for tabling this motion to highlight the malign influence of vulture funds and investment funds in helping to create, perpetuate and ever worsen the dire housing crisis that we face in this country, which is causing so much hardship for hundreds of thousands of people. It has contributed substantially to the record levels of homelessness and is locking out a whole generation of young working people from the possibility of ever owning their own home and crucifying them because they are forced into paying absolutely obscene rents.

Belcamp Manor really shows the bankruptcy of Government housing policy and the malign influence of these funds, and the Government's pathetic failure to do anything about that malign influence. They can buy up 85% of an estate, when the Government said it was going to deter them from doing that, and they are going to charge €3,000 per month to rent those properties. That is €36,000 a year in rent. That is probably more than 100% of the after-tax income of the average worker. That is what these vultures are going to charge people. It is disgusting and then they will not pay any tax on the rental income or the capital gains that they will make because of tax breaks designed by Fine Gael back in 2013 when Michael Noonan sat down with these people and asked what they wanted. What was the attitude of these people at the time? God, you should have known, because they were absolutely brazen about it.

Here are a couple of choice quotes from the time. Chris Flowers, CEO of a major investment fund, talked about the Irish market back then and said it was the gift that keeps on giving. He said, "lowlife grave dancers like me", which referred to these investment funds, would make a "tremendous fortune" out of the mess. Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, referred to how it was holding out from buying up at the beginning of the crash in Europe. He said, "we're basically waiting to see how beaten up people's psyches get". Then they sat down with Michael Noonan and he said they would not have to pay any tax on capital gains or their rent roll and that they could buy up all the property that NAMA had for nothing, then we ended up with the rents of €3,000 a month. It is absolutely disgusting.

The average house price in Dublin now is €430,000. In my area, the average house price is €630,000. Cherrywood, as I keep saying, is the biggest residential development in the country bar none, with infrastructure paid for by the public. The Minister of State, who knows where Cherrywood is, should go on daft.ieand look at the prices being charged. An 86 sq. m. duplex is €485,000. A terraced house of 87 sq. m. is €550,000. A four-bedroom house is €790,000. Average rents, if one tries to go up there, though you will probably not get it unless you are working for Google, since they will not even look at you if you try to rent in Cherrywood, are €2,200 for two bedrooms, or €2,400 to €3,000 for anything bigger like that. For a one bedroom place in Dún Laoghaire at the moment, you will not get anything for less than €1,700 a month. In fact, you are probably more likely to be paying €2,200. This is what these people have done. All of that property has been bought up by big investment funds. They sat on it, drip-fed the construction of it and then started to charge these kinds of prices, which nobody could afford, with extortionate rents.

I support increasing stamp duty but it is not enough. These funds should be banned. We do not need these funds. They should be told to get out of the country. They are wrecking the housing market. They are profiteering off the misery of ordinary people. The German Government has banned real estate investment trusts from buying up residential property. New Zealand has banned these foreign investment funds from buying houses. In the United States at the moment, there is legislation, though I am not sure it will be supported, but at least it shows there are people doing this in the United States. It is a Bill called the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act. Even at the heart of the capitalist beast, they are saying that these people need to go. If they were told to get out, that might drive down the price and value of property and indeed of rents. They should never have been brought in. It has created the disaster we are in. They should be told to get out.

We need a radical change in the entire model to move in the direction of places like Vienna, where 60% of all housing has to be social or affordable, or Helsinki, where all building land is in control of the state. If you want to build anything, you have to go to the state to say how it is going to contribute to the delivery of social and affordable housing, because if you are not going to contribute to that, you are not building. That is the approach we need. We need controls on these absolutely obscene rents and house prices, because it has failed. The incentivising, tax breaks and luring in of these funds has been a total disaster. The Government needs to acknowledge it and get them out.

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