Up to half of homes in new developments to be made available to owner-occupiers

Under new rules, cuckoo funds will be liable for higher stamp duty, up from 1% to 10%, for every house above 10 in a single development.

Councils will be allowed to ringfence up to half of new-build housing estates for owner-occupiers under new rules aimed at tackling the influence of so-called cuckoo funds.

However, new rules agreed by the Government will not apply to the hundreds of millions of euro worth of homes already sold to institutional investors, nor to apartments.