With respect, from listening to the Minister's answer, I believe that the Cabinet has taken a hands-off approach to this. The Government does not know what the estimated costs are. Maybe it does not want to know. Where I do agree with the Government is that the root cause of this is the two-stage procurement process, a process Deputy Varadkar, as Minister for Health, signed off on. The cause of this is ministerial incompetence. The PwC report found it was not because of inflation or other matters but the lack of bu…

The Minister should share them with the Dáil.

Last night, the Government pulled a political stroke by forcing through a last-minute amendment that gave a tax break to vulture funds to buy up thousands of homes throughout the State, pushing up house prices and outbidding first-time buyers. We really could not make this up. In the middle of a housing crisis, when the Minister knows and every person in the House knows that young people are locked out of affordable housing, that people cannot pay the cost of them and that there is a scarcity of housing, the Govern…

This is nothing but a pure political stroke. It is a last-minute amendment shoehorning in a tax break for vulture funds, cuckoo funds or investment funds, whatever you want to call them, that are now incentivised to bulk-buy homes and get a tax break if they lease them back to the local authorities. The Minister knows only too well that, in May, members of the public were outraged when they saw what unfolded when a cuckoo fund snapped up 135 homes in a newly built estate in Maynooth under the noses of struggling ho…

Complete nonsense.

Given the disgraceful amendment passed by the Government, the Bill needs to be opposed by the House.

In response to the shameful practice of institutional investors, or cuckoo funds, buying up family homes in bulk and pushing ordinary home buyers out of the market, the Government chose to introduce an inadequate increase in stamp duty in respect of houses. Not alone did the Government fail to tackle the issue in relation to houses, it decided to take no action whatsoever on apartments. It is important for us to remember that half of all homes built in Dublin last year were apartments. Six out of seven homes in Dub…

The Tánaiste needs to get real. He lives in this city and he should understand what is happening. Six of seven homes in this city are apartments, 95% of which have been bought up by institutional funds. They are able to do that because the Tánaiste, when Taoiseach, along with the then Government, introduced sweetheart deals that allow the sky high rents of €2,500 per month, which they are charging ordinary, hard-pressed families, to go tax-free. That is why they are able to do it. The Government has now exempted th…

-----the Government proposes to bring in an exemption that will allow these funds to snap up houses and to rent them back to local authorities-----

-----which the Taoiseach, rightly, says, is terrible value for money and should not be happening.

I ask the Tánaiste to square this for me.

Otherwise, the only reason I have is that the Government is in the pockets of the investment funds and it will continue to put their interests above the interests of homeowners.

I have a bit of advice for the Tánaiste. Instead of offering apologies on my behalf in a patronising way, maybe he would consider an apology to the tens of thousands of people locked out of the housing market after his Government of ten years, or to the hundreds of thousands paying eye-watering rent as a result of his policy. I will focus on what the Chief Medical Officer said yesterday in confirming that the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, advice on changes to the vaccine roll-out for younger peopl…

I reject that.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on what is now the third Bill with financial provisions in response to the pandemic. For the third time, Sinn Féin will support the financial provisions which will support our economy and ensure that it is in a position to recover strongly from the impact of this pandemic. In this regard I draw attention to recent comments made by the Minister for Finance during his election campaign in Dublin Bay South, during which it is reported that he said that Sinn Féin are against all of th…

Ba mhaith liom i dtús báire fáilte a chur roimh an mbeart a shocraigh foireann idirbheartaíochta Shinn Féin maidir le hAcht na Gaeilge agus an amlíne a leagadh síos chun é seo a chur i gcrích. Tá cainteoirí Gaeilge ag fanacht le cúig bliana déag ar a gcearta bunúsacha agus ar aitheantas agus beidh sé acu i mbliana. Guím gach rath ar mo chomhghleacaí, Michelle O’Neill, agus í ag glacadh an phoist mar chomhcheannaire arís tráthnóna. I begin this morning by welcoming the deal that was struck last night by the Sinn Féi…

The Tánaiste never fails to surprise me. The language he is coming out with today is that it is not as bad as it was 14 years ago. Does he know where ordinary people are at in his constituency and in Dublin Bay South? Does he know what people are being asked to pay to buy their own home? There is a serious problem and the problem is not, as he is suggesting, bigger mortgages. The problem relates to what the ESRI, the Central Bank, Sinn Féin and many others have been saying. The issue is not about stimulating more d…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an díospóireacht agus as an deis labhairt ar an ábhar seo tráthnóna inniu sa Dáil. Is ábhar é atá ag cur isteach go mór ar theaghlaigh ar fud mo cheantair féin i nDún na nGall. Tá úinéirí tí scriosta de bharr an scannail míoca agus piríte. Seasaim agus tréaslaím leo ar fad. Bhí mé bródúil a bheith i mo sheasamh leo taobh amuigh de gheataí na Dála ag an mórshiúl ar ar thaisteal na mílte daoine as Dún na nGall go dtí Baile Átha Cliath níos luaithe inniu. Tá sé náireach go bhfuil sé fágtha ag na da…

On 5 June, the G7 reached an agreement on concrete actions, including a suite of tax measures to respond to the increasing globalisation and digitalisation of the world economy. Among the measures agreed was the introduction of a global minimum tax rate of at least 15% for each country. All we have is a published communiqué but the Minister was in the room in his capacity as the president of the Eurogroup. Will he update the Dáil on the details of this part of the agreement, the application of the minimum rate and …

I apologise for interrupting but my understanding is that priority questions cannot be grouped. We sought guidance from the Ceann Comhairle's office and we were told that the Minister's office had been informed of that advice. It is important that we deal with these two matters separately and priority questions cannot be grouped.