Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the motion on the floor of the Chamber this evening and commend what it sets out to achieve. Investment funds trading in the Irish residential property market are perverting average house prices across the country. In my constituency of Clare, house prices rose by 4.3% on average over the past year and the average house price now stands at approximately €242,680. That is according to the most recent report to the end of last year by Ronan Lyons for Daft.ie. In this context, home buyers in my constituency are under immense pressure. They are in a heavily flooded market with a lot of other bidders, not least the local authority in many cases, and people who want to buy a holiday home or an Airbnb in others. This Government has failed to discourage the bulk buying by investment funds of huge developments in an ever-deepening housing crisis. It is shameful.

To say that these very rich and lucrative funds are paying only 10% stamp duty on the bulk-buying of massive swathes of our housing stock and have helped to drive up prices by 28% nationally since this Government took office would be laughable if it were not so pitiful. This Government has set fire to the property ladder. It is dismantling it rung by rung. It has copped out of going after holiday homes, with a ludicrous vacant homes tax that has failed fundamentally to act as a deterrent. The Government has done the same with vulture funds. In my constituency it has virtually stopped one from building a house, let alone from buying one. I fully support the motion. To be honest I do not think it goes far enough. These funds have deep pockets and let us get to the bottom of them. I am aware there are amendments calling for exactly that. We need policy that responds and reacts directly and significantly to issues in society, if it cannot prevent them. That is not the experience on the ground.

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