Government doesn’t want to see family homes bought up by investment funds ‘at all’, Taoiseach tells Dáil

The Government doesn’t want to see family homes being bought up by investment funds “at all”, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

Mr Varadkar told the Dáil on Tuesday the Government believed it was “undesirable” both socially and economically.

The Fine Gael leader also said the Government was not ruling out an increase in relation to the rate of stamp duty, which is currently 10 per cent, applicable on the bulk purchase of homes by such funds.

Mr Varadkar was responding to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald during Leaders’ Questions, who raised the housing development at Belcamp Manor in Balgriffin, north Dublin, where 85 per cent (46 out of 54) of properties in the estate were bought by an investment fund.

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Ms McDonald said despite the Government introducing new regulations in May 2021, more than 1,200 family homes had been “snapped up by vulture funds”.

“Far from stopping the vulture funds, they are laughing all the way to the bank and it’s a real kick in the teeth for everyone who has saved every spare euro and made real sacrifices to try and get a mortgage deposit together,” she said.

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The Dublin Central TD said the stamp duty set out by the Government two-and-half years ago was “far too low” and called on TDs to support her party’s motion setting out to increase it to 17 per cent.

“Government must act now to finally clip the wings of the vulture funds,” Ms McDonald added.

In response, Mr Varadkar said he didn’t like to see investment funds buying up “family homes en masse”.

However, the Taoiseach said Ms McDonald hadn’t represented the full story and the Government had changed the law, which “prohibited the bulk buying of houses and duplexes by a single buyer and also allowed local authorities to put it in a planning condition preventing the sale of homes in bulk such as this”.

Mr Varadkar said in relation to Belcamp Manor, planning permission was granted two years before the law was changed, in 2019.

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He said while the Government wasn’t ruling out an increase in stamp duty, it was something that had to be “considered carefully”.

“Any change to tax can have unforeseen impacts and also sometimes doesn’t work,” he said.

“So we need to make sure that if there is any change that it’s thought through and teased through correctly.”

The Taoiseach also said that Sinn Féin contended that by increasing stamp duty to 17 per cent, “that will solve the problem”.

“You don’t know that,” he told Ms McDonald. “Seventeen per cent might not be enough, or it might have other unintended consequences that do harm to people and businesses that you haven’t thought about and that’s why it’s important that we give any tax change very careful consideration.”

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