Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I offer my solidarity to two groups of people today, first the Palestinians whom I witnessed at first-hand being denied medical supplies in 2015 when I was there after the Israeli defence forces bombed them. I also offer my solidarity to the Ballymurphy families who are awaiting the findings of the inquest into what happened to their loved ones.

This morning, once again we have woken up to news about how broken our housing system is. An ESRI report found that home ownership by the age of 30 has halved in the space of a generation. Young people are forced to stay with their parents or live in the precarious overpriced private rental market. A second report this morning exposed how a Government agency, set up to boost small house builders, is now ploughing millions of euro into cuckoo developments. Sinn Féin warned that would happen. When the Home Building Finance Ireland legislation was being introduced, we tabled amendments to ensure that those loans would go to small builders and developers. However, once again Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael sided with the big players and voted against our amendments.

Large-scale investors are ploughing billions of euro into the private rental market. They are treating our population, especially the young, single and divorced, as cash cows. Home ownership is out of their grasp and so too is secure low-cost rental. Today, Sinn Féin will introduce a Private Members' Bill in the Dáil to rein in the vulture funds that Fine Gael invited in with open arms in 2013 when Enda Kenny said Ireland was a great little country to do business in. He sure as hell was not messing about. Real estate investment trusts, REITs, and Irish real estate funds, IREFs, pay no corporation tax and no capital gains tax. They enjoy preferential tax advantages and exemptions on their private rental business. Sinn Féin would end those tax advantages and exemptions, and we would impose a stamp duty surcharge on the purchase of residential property by REITs and IREFs.

I call for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to come before this House to outline his urgent plan to address vulture funds. We hear he has no plans to present to Cabinet today. The Government ignored our warnings on vulture funds and ignored our warnings on Home Building Finance Ireland, but it cannot continue to ignore the enormous anger among people who just want a secure home.