Government plans to curtail vulture funds 'don't go far enough'

Opposition TD say measures being proposed are inadequate to resolve housing crisis

Ministers will today approve measures that will seek to limit investment funds from buying up large numbers of family homes in estates. File Picture: Dan Linehan

Opposition politicians say the Government's proposed plans to deter and limit the ability of investment funds don't go far enough.

In what is technically a mini-budget, ministers will today approve measures that will seek to deter and limit the ability of investment funds from buying up large numbers of homes in estates, ahead of young families.

Government TDs have been put on standby for a vote on financial resolution linked to any Cabinet decision on stamp duty.

A vote of the full Dáil is required on such a financial resolution.

It's understood the measures will not be extended to apartment blocks.

"It doesn't look to me as if the Government has a serious policy to actually address this issue," People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said.

"Simply limiting the number of houses that a cuckoo fund can buy or ring-fencing a small amount for first-time buyers is a completely inadequate response to the problem we now face.

The cuckoo firms and the vultures need to be completely excluded from the housing sector.

"We need to absolutely ensure that those same vultures and cuckoos are not allowed get hold of the public land bank having wrecked the private housing sector.

"Honestly the mafia couldn't make up a scam like this," Mr Boyd Barrett said.

"It is just absolutely shocking beyond belief that we've been giving hundreds of millions, through these strategic investment funds to these cuckoos and vultures, who have wrecked the housing market.

"So we're paying on the double, financing them to wreck the housing market and then often leasing back the properties that we've helped finance through the local authorities at extortionate rates."

Different approach to encourage investors

The Labour Party said a different approach was needed to encourage investors to build in the city.

"The minister needs to go much further than what we're seeing today," Senator Rebecca Moynihan said.

"People have the right to be able to buy an apartment, and we don't want to see all the movement from housing estates into build-to-rent developments.

"In my area, planning permission is going through for 1,400 units, not one of which will be available for people to buy. That's  a very anti-city way of approaching housing."

Social Democrats Housing spokesperson Cian O'Callaghan said stamp duty must be looked at to deter investors.

In Maynooth, you saw investors outbidding housing associations by a margin of €80,000 on a €400,000 house.

"If you're trying to put a kind of disincentive in place with stamp duty, you're talking about a 20% stamp duty rate. The 7.5% commercial stamp duty that's in place at the moment hasn't acted as any sort of disincentive or dampening in terms commercial investment."

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