At the weekend, we learned that an investment fund is buying up the majority of homes in a development at Mullen Park in Maynooth. The fund, which has a "war chest" of €1 billion, has robbed first-time buyers of the opportunity to buy their own homes. The fund will acquire these homes and then put them up for rent at extortionate rates. Of course, investment funds buying housing in bulk is not a new phenomenon. It has been happening for a number of years. The truth is that it is Government policy to incentivise and support these private funds to buy up housing across the State. Indeed, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have rolled out the red carpet for them with a range of sweetheart tax advantages. These funds pay no corporation tax, no capital gains tax and minimal stamp duty, and they charge some of the highest rents in the State, on which they then pay no tax.

This cushy regime gives massive financial advantage to wealthy investment funds. No person trying to buy a home could possibly compete with them, be it in Maynooth or anywhere else. People scrimp and save every cent to put themselves in a position to buy a home, but just when they think they are getting closer to that goal, another Government with another bad decision pushes their dream further away. In this case, a wealthy investment fund has swooped in and bought homes from underneath the noses of families and workers.

This is not happening by accident. It is the outworking of a policy designed and defended by Fianna Fáil and its partners in government, Fine Gael. Year after year, we in Sinn Féin have submitted amendments to finance Bills to close down the tax advantages that allow these funds to squeeze workers and families out of the housing market. Year after year, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have clubbed together to stop that from happening. As recently as last November, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party voted against every single one of Sinn Féin's amendments. Time and again, the Government has favoured investment funds over ordinary people.

Now, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, says that Fianna Fáil's big plan to tackle this scandal is to limit investment funds to purchasing only 70% of a housing estate. Well, woo-hoo. That gives nobody any comfort. That is outrageous. While investment funds continue to enjoy the Government's tax advantages, they will still be able to gazump ordinary people for the majority of homes for sale in any estate on any day of the week. They will be able to do that because the Government allows and encourages it.

This approach is just another plank of a housing policy that is failing. The Government has produced an unambitious and anemic plan that has no understanding even of affordability. Some €450,000 for a home in Dublin is not affordable. People deserve better. We can and must make housing affordable again. We can deliver homes that working people can actually afford and we can tackle extortionate rents, but, first, the Government needs to stop lining the pockets of wealthy investors and developers. Maintaining sweetheart tax advantages for investment funds must come to an end. When will the Government take immediate action to close these tax advantages and stand with workers and families as opposed to the funds? When will it introduce legislation to stop them from buying homes in bulk?

First of all, I will state unequivocally that the purchasing by institutional investors of completed housing estates is unacceptable and not consistent with Government policy. We do not want institutional investors competing with first-time buyers. Our priority is first-time buyers. Our priority is additional supply of housing. The cornerstone of our housing policy is to build 50,000 social homes over the next five years. It is the largest and most ambitious social housing programme in the history of the State, with 9,500 direct builds targeted this year and 12,750 social homes in total out of 25,000 houses overall this year. That is the bottom line insofar as this Government is concerned.

Institutional investment was brought into the country more than eight years ago through various measures to add supply, not to displace supply. That is the critical differential point. The Government will now examine what transpired over the weekend in respect of a suburban housing estate being purchased en bloc by an institutional investor. That is not acceptable to the Government. I have spoken to the Ministers for Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and Housing, Local Government and Heritage. This issue will be examined across the board in terms of ensuring that the purpose and objective of inward investment in the residential market is to add supply, not displace supply and compete with first-time buyers out in the suburban market. Originally, the intention was to facilitate high-density build-to-rent housing a number of years ago in the cities. We were not in government at the time, but nonetheless capital is important in getting supply into this country. One has to distinguish between good capital and bad capital, between additionality and displacement.

In the past, banks drove construction activity in this country. That is no longer the case. Instead, this Government will drive new construction by providing unprecedented levels of funding to local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs, to build social and affordable homes in what I have described as the biggest social housing programme in the history of the State. That is what we are about in relation to housing. On the affordable front, a suite of policies have been developed by the Minister in addition to ones already in place, every single one of which Sinn Féin has opposed, including the 22,000 purchasers who availed of the help-to-buy scheme, which has been in place now for a number of years.

The affordable housing Bill provides mechanisms and more opportunities to support affordable homes for couples and young people who want to buy housing. That is extremely important, including in the delivery of housing programmes and the construction situation from social homes to affordable homes, the development of brownfield sites, infrastructural development and the whole raft of urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, funding to, for example, enable infrastructure to facilitate the construction of housing. These are all important initiatives that will yield additional supply in the private sector over time. The development of the first national cost rental scheme should be acknowledged. It is a very significant development that opens up significant potential, not just this year, but into the future, with rents that are 25% below the market price. These are important developments. In addition to them, the Land Development Agency, LDA, legislation will provide a further mechanism to get additional supply into the market.

The fundamental point that I want to make this afternoon is that the purchase by institutional investors of completed housing estates is unacceptable and will now be examined by the Government in terms of dealing with that aspect of the events.

The Government is not driving construction. It has left renters in the lurch, it will not cut rents and it will not ensure that there will be no rent increases for the next three years. It has no clue about affordability. In the cloud cuckoo land that the Government inhabits, €450,000 for a house in Dublin is affordable apparently. That is not the case.

Above all else, the Government's policy has consistently favoured and facilitated big developers, landlords and private investment funds. What happened in Maynooth was not an accident; it is a direct consequence of the Government's policies, which it has designed and defended. It has cut a sweetheart deal arrangement for these investment funds with no corporation tax, no capital gains tax, and only minimal stamp duty. The result is that these big wealthy funds can swoop in and gobble up those houses that workers and families should expect to be able to afford.

I thank the Deputy.

I am not looking for a long-winded examination of this.

No, but the time is up.

The evidence of the Government's policies can be seen on the ground. I want the Taoiseach to tell us today-----

Please, Deputy-----

------that the Government will end these sweetheart arrangements for these funds and get them to pay their corporation tax-----

Deputy, please, the time is up.

-----capital gains tax-----

The Deputy is out of time.

-----and stamp duty on those properties.

I ask the Deputy to desist. The time is up.

The Deputy should listen to what I said. I was very clear that this is not Government policy.

Yes, it is.

I have said it very clearly. We do not in any shape or form deem it acceptable that institutional investment of this kind would buy up estates that are already built. We have said that now. By the way, just to put things in perspective-----

The Taoiseach, without interruption.

-----institutional ownership of residential units is less than 1% of total housing stock and 5% of all rental tenancies. Just to give some perspective to the rather long-winded introduction that the Deputy gave-----

The Taoiseach, without interruption.

I will make a further point. The Deputy also needs to analyse-----

The Taoiseach is a disgrace.

-----her own party's affordability policies and the assertion that it would deliver 20,000 homes each year. She cannot say where, how or by whom.

Get up the yard.

Let us take Clondalkin, for example, where Sinn Féin and parties of the left voted against the building of 975 homes, which included 30% social housing.

Time is up, Taoiseach.

In Tallaght, for example, Sinn Féin opposed 500 homes, of which 80% would be social or affordable houses. Sinn Féin continues to oppose house developments in this country.

Please, the time is up.

That gives the lie to its so-called commitment to social and affordable housing.

Go away out of that.

It has voted against every affordable scheme-----

The Taoiseach does not even know what affordable is.

-----that is brought before the House.

Is €500,000 affordable?

I ask the leaders to comply with the time limits that have been set down, please.