Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister speaks about putting things in context and the reality of how long it takes to build homes. Everyone recognises that it takes time to address this. We have had 12 years of Fine Gael in government trying to address this and it is simply not working. The Minister says we are making no suggestions. I just made a suggestion to try to stamp out the bulk buying of homes. We need an effective ban. There is a suggestion. Other low-hanging fruit include tackling vacancy. At a time when house price inflation was 10%, the Minister introduced a 0.3% tax on vacancy. That is feigning an attempt to address vacancy. He is feigning an attempt to stamp out the bulk buying of homes. These are two suggestions. They are low-hanging fruit and the Minister can do that immediately. Will he do it?

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