morning everybody and look it's a busy week this week and we have a number of
things things to go through with you namely on Brexit obviously with our
spokesperson Lisa on the health on the health service with with
Stephen Donnelly but first I'd just like to talk to you about something
that's has been come to greater prominence over the last few weeks & is
causing immense stress within our housing market which is the figures
we've seen through Savills on the cuckoo funds or the impact that REITs
are having in buying new properties in Ireland we've seen from the Savills
reports last year about 2600 homes, many of which should have been for
first-time buyers have been bought up by investment funds. We've also seen at the
same time the state buying up many properties for social housing. So in a
situation where last year we probably built less than 20,000 homes we see
first-time buyers being completely squeezed out of that market squeezed by
private investors on the one side squeezed by the state on the other and
the issue there is obviously firstly down to supply that we need to ramp up
this supply a first-time affordable homes for working people and that's why
again I reiterate here and continue to do so the absolute need for the urgent
establishment of a first-time buyers affordable housing scheme
for first-time buyers for working people on state-owned land to get that supply
up. But what we're also calling for today is a full review of the tax
treatment of these REIT funds and these cuckoo funds. You see these funds were
invited in to this country and institutional investors yes are required
from time to time, but look at the tax treatment here. Why is it so advantageous
for funds to come in and to buy full developments and hundreds of homes. Even
in my own constituency in Donabate in Balbriggan and affordable homes that
they're purchasing to rent out into the market at extortionate rents. Now this
is a result of failed Fine Gael housing policy. Of leave it to the investor
leave it to the market and let let the people just just do their best, do
what they can. Fianna Fáil believe in a fundamentally
different approach that the state should lead by example so Steven Donnelly my
colleague three weeks ago has actually written to the Minister for Finance
actually seeking that review and clarification of the tax
treatment of these funds, and what the government intends to do. Well we will
formerly this week again be writing to the minister to look for a
full formal review and the impact that these funds are having on our housing
market. A market that I have said already which is severely shrunk where people
are finding an incredibly difficult into the market and are paying extortionate
rents all over Ireland. Some double-digit growth in rent still and that again
points to a failed policy on rents, a failed policy on delivering both private
and public homes. We have a different approach in Fianna Fáil. We want to see the
establishment of the affordable housing scheme and we also want to see the home
building finance Ireland, the funding given out through that scheme to
actually get out into the market so smaller players can start building.
That's not working at the moment and that's one of the reasons we're seeing
that the builders and developers are selling off large chunks of property
which is effectively debt capital to build other estates and to receive with
other developments because they can't get financed through the government's
own schemes.
Question:" ..... a lot of the houses wouldn'e exist without these cuckoo funds and what are Fianna Fail doing in
terms of this tax treatment then but what is your proposal? The first
thing is all these these homes were granted full planning permission by the
local authorities, I used the example in my own area in Donabate and Portrane
nearly two hundred
homes sold by Glenveigh onto a REIT fund. They were they were first-time buyer
homes. They were actually pitched and they're still pitched in the market as
affordable homes right now in the region of 280 to 340 thousand Euros.
So they weren't actually built with the view to sell on. That is a symptom of
the fact that a lot of these a lot of builders cannot actually get the finance
to go on to the next development so I don't look there's a role for
institutional investors obviously there's a role for private money within
a rental market, no doubt about that when we see six seven thousand mom and pop
landlords moving out of the market which is another issue. But they're distorting
the market you're looking at by two thousand six hundred out of about 18,000 homes
built last year 1.1 billion gone in and effectively effectively no tax and
that's really what we need to do we need to we need to look at the impacts you're
asking me what would Fianna Fáil do and we want a full review of it first. We want
to see that what measures can be taken potentially in planning law to restrict
to make potentially restrict this but first and foremost we want to have a look at the tax treatment.
We need homes
delivered absolutely but if you're looking at 15% of the market they're
being hoovered up by large property funds that's a major major problem and
they're being rented out at two thousand two thousand one hundred euro from on
that is that is a big issue particularly when first-time buyers out there can't
buy family homes. well I think we need to see a full review and a full open review
first I mean we need to get under the bonnet of this. And to see what
is actually done and what the impact of that is. Obviously we will have our own
tax policy and our own tax policies as a party.
We've been very clear on what we do on housing by the way we've already brought
forward measures to improve tax treatment for those individual landlords
to to bring about an affordable housing scheme and to
ramp up investments in social housing. Since we've we entered into Confidence &
Supply we've seen a four-fold increase in in the capital funds from the
government going into build public homes but right now the issue is that
both sides of the state side and the private equity side we're
being squeezed out.
Question: ".....so that's wrong like would you be calling for these sort of such whatever
the treatment least actually forget it
No I think waiting for the budget is a long time to wait to be honest which
we're calling for an urgent review before formally calling for that now so
that review should be time bound it should not take long for that to report
back there's no doubt there are loopholes and there's an unlevel playing pitch out
there at the moment that it's that for foreign money that has come in that it
was actually welcomed in by the last Fine Gael Labour government I might add.
They were asked to come in and they're in now we're seeing the impact of that so
it does need to be addressed.