Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to have the opportunity to expand on this important issue because it is always important when it comes to housing - one of the biggest intergenerational challenges of our time - that the Government is willing to listen and to respond. Something we did not hear from the previous speaker is that we live in a country where every working day, we see so many homes being built, where so far this year every working day we see around 350 new homes being built and where every week around 500 young people and couples are buying their first home. It is a country where this year so far, more than 32,000 homes have commenced construction. Almost as many homes have commenced construction this year as did for the totality of the previous year. That is real progress that gives people who want to move out of the box room in their parent's house, and indeed parents who want their adult child to move out of the box room, real hope as well.

The issue of the bulk-buying and bulk-purchasing of houses is an issue I want to see further action on. As I said previously, it is clear from the Housing Commission report - which the Deputy lauded in the House last week before having an opportunity to read it - that we need both private and public investment in order to add to our housing stock. Even within that context, we cannot have a situation where the bulk purchase of homes needed for first-time buyers is allowed to continue unimpeded. The Government has already acted and it is important to acknowledge that. This is something that, again, did not get mentioned in the previous three minutes. The Government has already put in place both tax measures and planning measures to try to address this issue.

I am very clear; I want to take further measures. Just to be clear, that is exactly how I voted in the Dáil in January. It is exactly how Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party TDs voted in the Dail in January. When we voted, it was not to vote down the Deputy's motion, we voted for our motion. Our motion clearly said that the Government is committed to ensuring that newly-built houses are available to first-time buyers and owner-occupiers and that the Government will continue to examine how best we can achieve this. Therefore, the Government did not vote in the Deputy likes to describe.

My own party, at our Ard-Fheis in recent weeks, also passed a motion calling on this party and me as its new leader to take further action in this situation as well. To be clear, it is Government policy to prevent the bulk purchasing of houses. The Government has already introduced a higher rate of stamp duty and we have already introduced new planning rules. The Government continuously monitors the situation to see if more needs to be done.

For some context, the higher stamp duty rate has applied to less than 1% of residential property transactions between May 2021 to the end of 2023. We have also seen the Minister for housing introduce section 28 guidelines in 2021. This aims to provide an owner-occupier guarantee by ensuring that new own-door houses and duplex units in housing developments can no longer be bulk-purchased by institutional investors in a manner that causes displacement of individual purchasers or social and affordable housing, including cost-rental. What the figures already show is that the introduction of these guidelines to December 2023 has resulted in more than 40,000 homes granted planning permission with conditions prohibiting the bulk purchase by or multiple sale to a single purchaser. The Government has acted, it will take further action, but let us not misrepresent the Government's position at all. I know why the Deputy wishes to distract from the positive housing figures we have seen because the Deputy has never seen a challenge she does not wish to exploit, misinform or misdirect people on

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