Ban on Investment Funds Purchasing Family Homes: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-17
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Pearse Doherty (SF), Donegal

I move that:
That Dáil Éireann:
notes that:
— the housing crisis continues to deepen for ordinary workers and families while corporate landlords, investors and developers make ever greater profits;
— residential property prices have increased by 47.7 per cent since 2020, pushing first-time buyers further into debt to secure a home, while locking many out of home ownership;
— high rents and residential property prices are making it increasingly difficult for workers and families to purchase and own their own home, leading to the collapse of homeownership;
— investment funds bulk purchasing homes takes homes away from ordinary workers and families, and drives up prices;
— despite the commitments by Government to end the practice, investment funds have continued to bulk purchase homes;
— the Government re-committed to prohibiting the bulk purchase of homes in the Programme for Government; and
— despite repeated promises to address the issue of homes being bulk purchased by vulture funds, the Government continues to allow the practice;
further notes that:
— Sinn Féin have repeatedly called for investment funds to not be allowed bulk purchase homes;
— the Government was warned by Sinn Féin that belated measures introduced in May 2021, and the adjustment in Budget 2025, would be insufficient to end this unacceptable practice;
— the Government are responsible for the continued bulk purchase by investment funds, with over 2,000 houses purchased by investment funds triggering the higher rate of stamp duty between May 2021 and the end of 2025, at the expense of individual home buyers; and
— this only captures a fraction of the homes being bought by vulture funds, who continue to be able to buy up to nine houses at a time without even having to pay the higher stamp duty rate, and face no restrictions on the purchase of apartments;
concludes that the Government, comprising Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Government Independents, are prioritising the interests of developers, landlords and investment funds, at the expense of struggling workers and families; and
calls on the Government to ban investment funds from buying family homes.
Vulture funds were invited into this country by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and they then dusted down the red carpet for them. They were invited in to snap up homes on the cheap that should have gone to workers and families. Fine Gael rolled out that red carpet and has been waiting on them hand and foot ever since. That is the reality. Sinn Féin's motion is a straightforward proposal. Indeed, it is asking the Government to keep its word. It simply puts the needs of workers and families ahead of the faceless vulture funds. We are calling for a ban on these funds snapping up family homes. That is it. It is as simple as that. End this practice. That this Government has failed to do this when we are this far into a housing crisis is absolutely shameful.
Ordinary workers and families right across the State have no chance competing with these funds. They hoover up homes and they drive up prices. People have watched as house prices have gone out of control under the Government's watch. They have gone up 50% in five years. People are desperate. They know they cannot keep up. No matter how hard they work or how much they save, the hope of ever owning their own home keeps being ripped away from them. When these vultures snapped up a housing estate in County Kildare back in 2021, people's blood was boiling. It was that anger that forced the Government's hand. I know this because for years before that, I was tabling amendments calling on the Government to act. I tabled amendment after amendment to finance Bills, and Minister after Minister, in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, rallied against them and voted against them time and time again.
Let us be honest: even when the Government's hands were finally forced, it did as little as it could get away with. It was just enough to look like it was doing something about it. All the while, it was letting vulture funds snap up homes left, right and centre. The proof is there for everybody to see. Over 2,000 homes have been bulk purchased since the Government said it would stop it. The programme for Government again committed to ending this scandal. It is one thing that the Government said it would do, the one small measure it said it would take in its programme for Government, and it did not even deliver on this basic issue. When Deputy Simon Harris was Taoiseach, he said vulture funds buying up homes "cannot be tolerated". Those are his words. He wrote to the then Minister for Finance calling on him to intervene. He called on him to stand up for first-time buyers but it was all for show. It was all so he could leak it to the media and make it look as if he was doing something about it. Deputy Harris, though, is now the Minister for Finance and vulture funds are still buying up family homes. The only difference is that he has no one to write his letters to anymore. There is no one else to blame because this is happening on his watch, and far from not tolerating it, he is supporting it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-17