Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I give my best wishes to Aisling Hart, who is retiring this week from the Seanad Office. She has been extremely helpful to all Senators over the number of years I have been here, and I wish her well.

I want to address one of the most pressing issues in our country, which is housing. More important, I propose a solution. The debate on housing has been highly unproductive. It has followed a false binary where some advocate for deregulation and the reliance on the market while others believe the State can build infinite housing. More significantly, the debate has focused solely on supply, neglecting demand. The simple fact is that we cannot address housing without tackling the Government's open-door policy towards the purchase of residential property. It often seems like anyone from anywhere in the world is welcome to buy any amount of residential property here. This policy, or lack of it, applies to individuals and, more often, foreign corporations. In what other nation would it be acceptable for the biggest landlord to be a Canadian vulture fund? Given that members of our governing parties are often landlords themselves, and some have invested in vulture and cuckoo funds, it is hard to imagine this is not by design.

Foreign vulture funds and property speculators are not the only pressures on housing. We must also consider migration. Increasing housing demand without expecting stable rents is unrealistic. No State policy or housing market can keep pace with the mass immigration we have seen in the past 20 years. Many migrants in Ireland are employed by large multinationals at much higher wages than the rest of the population. We consequently see numerous examples of newly built housing estates in areas like Lucan and Citywest, where as few as 9% of residents and owners are Irish.

It is high time we introduced new laws to restrict the purchase and ownership of residential property by foreign corporations and non-EU nationals. Many countries have similar restrictions, such as Denmark, Switzerland, Canada and Hungary. In our own country, we already allow restrictions in the Gaeltacht areas. We have precedents and best practice to draw on, and it is of the utmost importance that the Government, especially the Minister for housing, look into this.