Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, I raised with the Taoiseach the scandal of a wealthy vulture fund buying up 46 of 54 homes at Belcamp Manor in north Dublin. These were homes that should have been available to workers and families to buy, to live in and to call home. Instead, the fund will rent them out for more than €3,000 a month. It is scandalous. Clearly, the Government's measures to stop the funds have not measured up. It is not just Sinn Féin saying this. Department officials warned Government last year that funds were still snapping up family homes from under the noses of ordinary home buyers. Yesterday, the Taoiseach dismissed this issue and sought to downplay what is a very serious problem in the midst of a housing crisis, so I will raise it with him again today.

In the case of the 1,200 homes that have been bulk purchased since the Government introduced its regulations in 2021, it is clear that the funds simply absorbed the 10% stamp duty and then carried on as normal. Nearly 700 of these homes were snapped up here in Dublin, but the vultures also bought up homes in Cork, Carlow, Westmeath, Kildare, Wicklow, Limerick and beyond. Their claws extend far beyond the capital and the damage they are doing is very real. If the bulk purchasing were not bad enough, we now also know that vulture funds bought up 6,000 homes in 2022, 2,000 of which were houses. In the year immediately following the introduction of the Government's regulations, the year after the Taoiseach said the Government was clamping down on these funds, we see that more homes than ever were being bought by these vulture funds. In fact, one in ten of all houses sold was bought by funds that year.

The Taoiseach should not play this down or pretend it is not happening. This is a big problem that cuts to the unfairness at the heart of the housing crisis and you cannot blame young people in particular for feeling that the table is tilted against them. This activity by vulture funds locks people out of home ownership and forces them into the private rental market, where the same funds then charge extortionate levels of rent. The Government also ensures that, when the rent money comes rolling in, funds do not pay a red cent of tax on that income.

Where is the urgency in Government to sort this out? The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, says the Government will review its measures but, as things stand, another Belcamp Manor could happen today if the Government does not act quickly. Tá sé thar am anois ag an Rialtas seasamh suas i gcomhair gnáthcheannaitheoirí tithe. Má tá sé dáiríre faoi stop a chur leis na creach-chistí atá ag ceannach tithe teaghlaigh, tacóidh sé le plean Shinn Féin anocht. Yesterday, the Taoiseach told me, and I believe him, that he does not like to see investment funds buying up family homes en masse, but actions speak louder than words. We have a motion before the Dáil tonight that would stop funds buying up family homes. Every TD can vote tonight to clip the wings of the vulture funds. The Government has a choice to make. It can continue to stand with the vulture funds or it can finally step in decisively on the side of ordinary home buyers and say this stops now. Which choice will you make, Taoiseach?

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