Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Relax, Thomas, for a second. I have given the facts. No one wants to see family homes being bulk purchased and that is why I made the planning changes. Whether the Deputy likes it or not those planning changes are working because 40,000 planning permissions are granted now with an owner-occupier guarantee on them, which means they cannot be sold on a bulk basis. That is working. Why are 600 first-time buyers a week able to buy properties and draw down their mortgages at the moment? The Deputy might answer that. They are able to do it because of the support the Government is giving. We will look at this tax measure and we should but let us not say this issue is predominant right the way across the country. The Deputy must put it in context. It is 1% of all property transactions.

See this speech in context