Government ‘asleep at the wheel’ while taxpayer money helps cuckoo funds
– Matt Carthy TD
Cavan Monaghan Sinn Féin TD, Matt Carthy, has railed against government investment in cuckoo funds which have been revealed to be using taxpayer money to assist with purchasing large numbers of housing units.
Deputy Carthy said:
“It is bad enough that the Government appears to be blind to the solutions but we now know that it is an active contributor to the dysfunction in our housing system.
“Since 2016, house prices have risen by 30% and rents have increased by 44%. The cost of a home in the first quarter of this year was 7.6% higher than in the same period last year.
“Behind every one of these increases in rent or house prices are ordinary families and workers struggling to get themselves into a home or to retain their homes. Repeatedly, Government solutions are more of the same. It is handouts, freebies and tax breaks but these are for the corporate landlords, the speculators and the vultures.
“We heard in here only last week speaker after speaker from the Government side feigning anguish and crying crocodile tears at the very thought that investment funds could be purchasing large swathes of family homes.
“It turns out that the Government, the same parties, were actually investing in those very investment funds.
“We need an increase in the delivery of social and affordable housing to deliver homes for those who need them and to reduce the pressure that is pushing up rents and house prices.
“Every single week Deputy Ó Broin and Sinn Féin bring forward the proposals that will do exactly that and every single week Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party TDs vote them down in the hope and blind aspiration that Darragh O’Brien’s policies, which are a repeat of the Fine Gael policies before him, will somehow deliver different results.
“We are calling for a doubling of the direct investment in public housing to €2.8 billion per year at the very least because that is what is needed. That is what Sinn Fein’s proposals will bring.
“This is another opportunity this week for Government Deputies. Do they stand for change and for delivering housing for those young people about whom they speak so eloquently or do they want to continue with the repeatedly failed policies that have not secured the homes that our young people deserve?”
Following the debate, Carthy commented:
“Week by week we are learning more about the role of these investment funds role in our ongoing housing crisis. It now appears that smaller funds are looking to the secondhand market, and there are also worrying reports in relation to agricultural land.
“It beggars’ belief that government seem not only entirely disinterested, but are actually bankrolling this fire-sale of nearly every type of property in this state.”
ENDS
