Foreign investors control rental market, claims Mick Wallace

A cartel of predominantly foreign investors are now controlling the rental market, it has been claimed in the Dáil.

Independent TD Mick Wallace told Taoiseach Enda Kenny that “we need to build social housing through the local authorities. Not until then will you solve the housing crisis.”

He said the Taoiseach was not the only one with responsibility for the issue, as the housing crisis was the results of decades “of housing policy that follows the private free market sector”.

Mr Wallace, who has a background in building and development, said “you’ve got a cartel of investors, now, most of them foreign controlling the rental market.

“Rents have gone from €1,000 a month to €1,500 because of the fact that you have literally sold half the country away.”

Project Arrow

He called on the Taoiseach to stall the National Assets Management Agency (Nama) sale of a group of loans known as Project Arrow to preferred bidder US investment firm Cerberus, and to take suitable housing units out of the sale.

“We sold the best sites in Ireland through Nama to investment trusts from abroad,” he added.

Mr Wallace, who has loans with Cerberus, said Nama had plans to build 20,000 houses, but only 10 per cent would be social - when the level should be 50 per cent.

“Most of the social housing you’re planning is through the private sector.”

Local authorities should, he said, be allowed to borrow money at cheap ECB rates to build houses.

Balance sheet

But Mr Kenny said that if local authorities borrowed the money from the ECB, that would go back on the Government’s balance sheet.

The Taoiseach said the Government had put €4 billion on the table for housing, and called in the local authority chief executives and told them they had their targets and to get on with building.

There would be 200 sites in the course of next year for social housing and Nama would have 100 sites next year, building 80 units at each of the sites.

Rent certainty

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams asked whether the Government would introduce rent certainty and if not, why not.

Fine Gael was resisting Labour’s call for rent certainty, he said.

He said there were 24 Fine Gael Oireachtas members who were landlords. He asked was this a factor in Fine Gael’s resistance.

Claiming there was “chaos” in the Cabinet over the division between Labour and Fine Gael on rent controls, Mr Adams asked “will it be Labour’s way or Fine Gael’s?”

Mr Kenny told him it would not be Sinn Féin’s way, claiming Sinn Féin would ruin the economy.