Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is certainly positive to see an increase in the level of stamp duty on the bulk purchase of homes, which I concede, but this simply does not go far enough. The Government resolution simply does not do enough to dissuade the bulk purchase of homes by institutional investors. We in the Labour Party had put down an amendment to increase the stamp duty rate to 20% on the bulk purchase of homes and, crucially, to remove the specific exclusion of apartment blocks. That is something that absolutely should be done and we are very disappointed our amendment has been ruled out of order. We had hoped it would be put because it would have given the Minister's Fine Gael colleagues, in particular, a chance to say whether they really wanted the rate set at 20%. Indeed, the Fine Gael Minister of State, Deputy Neale Richmond, specifically said back in September that he wanted to see a stamp duty rate of 20%. He said that Fine Gael would include that in its manifesto and he told The Sunday Times that the rate should be doubled to 20%. He said, rightly, that clearly there is an unacceptable level of bulk purchasing happening and this is to the detriment of people wishing to purchase their own home.

Just yesterday, I stood in Mullen Park estate in Maynooth, which made news headlines three years ago when a large conglomerate, Ranhill Capital Sdn Bhd, attempted to bulk buy 115 homes in that estate. It was only then, in response to that deal, which eventually fell through, that the Government pushed through new rules in the form of hiked stamp duty to limit property funds from bulk purchasing homes. More needs to be done. I stood with Labour Party Councillor Angela Feeney in the estate, where now, happily, properties have been bought by individual buyers, but it is a real example of what can go wrong when bulk purchasing is facilitated and when a punitive rate is not applied to it. It shows the need to go further than the Government has done.

The tax strategy group papers show that the current rate of 10% applied to 623 homes in 2023, 438 in 2022 and 188 in 2021. That is more than 1,200 homes lost to owner-occupiers and we have no idea-----

See this speech in context