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 Dublin city are apartments. The vast majority of these homes are being snapped up by funds, which do not pay even a single cent of tax on rental income. In fact, last year, one of them made €75 million in rental income and paid no tax on it whatsoever. The Government has taken no action on this. It is little wonder the funds' share price increased following the Government's announcement last month. Clearly, the Government's message to those who want to buy a home that is affordable is, "Sorry, not on our watch", because it is actively facilitating a free-for-all for these institutional funds.

It was not just Sinn Féin that called this out and stated the Government's measures were inadequate. Others did likewise, not least senior officials within the Department of Finance. Through freedom of information, we can now clearly see that, in early May, the Government was warned that no extra stamp duty on bulk purchases of apartments means individual purchasers are potentially driven out of the market due to the lack of availability. That is what the Government was told by its own officials, yet it ignored their advice and proceeded with a policy it knows will not address the issue in respect of apartments.

Let me spell it out for the Tánaiste. Apartments are homes just like houses. People want to live in these homes in our cities. They should not be forced to fork out unaffordable rents in perpetuity to do so. The policy choice the Tánaiste and his Government made says to workers and families that this Government is not on their side, but on the side of the funds, developers and banks. That is the reality. Yesterday, we saw other evidence of this, when it was reported that 398 homes across three locations in this city, Santry, Finglas and Clongriffin, were snapped up by these funds. Not one of these homes will come on to the market for first-time buyers and not one of the funds has to pay the increased stamp duty.

Why did the Minister for Finance ignore the warnings from his own Department officials that the decision taken on apartments would continue to see first-time buyers blocked and locked out of the market? Will the Government, once and for all, end the sweetheart tax deals that these funds enjoy? We need to stop these funds snapping up homes, apartments and houses that should, and must, go to ordinary workers and families. Further to this, just a couple of weeks ago, the Dáil was emphatically told by the Taoiseach that the message that should "go out loud and clear" was that "No local authority should be on the other side of this, engaging in a long lease with these institutional investors". However, we learned just this morning that the Minister for Finance intends to do exactly the opposite. He intends to exempt these funds from paying the higher stamp duty if they lease these houses back to the local authorities. How the hell can this stand? How can this be facilitated, given the Taoiseach's comments in the Dáil just a couple of weeks ago?

It is important, once again, to be aware of the facts. We know from the most recent statistics produced that approximately 10% of new homes in Ireland were bought by investment funds. Some 20% were bought by the State, through local authorities and affordable housing bodies. I have said previously we also need to take into account that first-time buyers, and people who want to upgrade or downsize, are sometimes not just competing with investment funds but with the State. In fact, they are more likely to be competing with the State than with investment funds. We need to bear that in mind. The figure is 10% for the year gone by but it will be less this year and in future years because of the action we took, which was to impose a very high stamp duty rate on any fund that buys more than ten houses anywhere in Ireland in a given year. They cannot buy ten in every estate; it is ten anywhere in Ireland in any one year. We believe that will significantly reduce, or eliminate, the practice of investment funds buying up new houses.

As we explained at the time, we took a decision not to apply that to apartments, having taken advice widely and having heard, in particular, from builders who build apartments, who very clearly said to us that if we did this we would see reduced supply. Builders are simply not in a position to build apartments if they do not have the assurance of a forward buyer. They cannot get the finance to build in those circumstances. As we said at the time, this is something we will keep under review. If we have to alter that policy, we are open to doing so, but we do not want to do anything that is counterproductive and only results in fewer apartments being built. If fewer apartments are built, that means less places for people to rent and, therefore, rents go up for everyone else. That is something we obviously want to avoid.

By the way, I totally agree with the Deputy's earlier statement. I agree that apartments are homes too. I have lived in an apartment for 14 years. I know that apartments are homes too. It might be the case that around the world, including Ireland, the vast majority of people in apartments are renting but there are those of us who are owner-occupiers as well. I happen to be one of them. It is why I was surprised to hear Senator Lynn Boylan, on two occasions, refer to people who live in apartments as "transients". Those of us who live in apartments are not transients. Senator Boylan should not have said that. Perhaps she did not mean it, but she should withdraw it. I am pretty sure that if anyone in Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael referred to apartment livers as "transients", we would be attacked and savaged online. Senator Boylan is a Sinn Féin representative and she got away with it. I hope the Deputy does not stand over that remark and will address it in his reply.

As a Government, we are trying to help. We are in a housing crisis but we are trying to help renters. The Deputy knows the decision we took in the last few days, which was a necessary change of policy, to link rents to the consumer price index and inflation. This is so people who are now renting will not see their rent increase by any more than the rate of inflation, probably 1% or 2%, or maybe even less in the coming years. We will leave that in place until rents fall and become more affordable again.

We are helping home buyers as well, particularly through the help-to-buy scheme. Tens of thousands of people have been helped to get their deposit through the help-to-buy scheme, something the Deputy's party has consistently opposed.

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 them from the higher level of stamp duty despite the most senior official in the Department charged with drafting this legislation saying it could potentially drive individual purchasers out of the market due to the lack of availability. This is eyes wide open stuff. The Tánaiste and his party are deliberately locking out individuals from home ownership in relation to apartments. The opportunity the Tánaiste had will not be available to people in Dublin at this point in time because the investors are snapping them up.

I will give another example. There are three sites across Dublin on which there will be 400 homes, not one of which will come on the market. We will see more of this. To make things worse-----

The Deputy is over time.

-----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-----

The Tánaiste to reply, please.

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

Thank you Deputy. The Tánaiste to reply.

I ask the Tánaiste to square this for me.

No, Deputy. You are out of time.

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.

The Deputy continues to go over time.

I apologise to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle that she had to endure that display, ring her bell and be shouted over and shouted down by Deputy Doherty again.

Deputy Doherty said that I need to get real. He needs to calm down. The constant display every Thursday of aggression, nastiness, fury and anger is all preplanned and done for his social media video he will put out in a few minutes or an hour's time. Everyone knows that. Let us have a rational grown up conversation about housing policy and about what are the right and the wrong things to do. As a Government, we have displayed on a number of occasions that we have been willing to change our policy where we think it needs to be changed. That is why we changed the law in relation to stamp duty to stop investment funds buying up houses and housing estates in the way they were doing so. It is why we are now changing the law to bring rent controls so that people living in rent pressure zones will see their rent increases linked to the consumer price index, CPI. Let us have a grown up conversation about policy. Let us talk about the pros and cons.

Thank you Tánaiste.

Let us not have this display of histrionics and anxiety every Thursday.

Tánaiste you are over time.

It is just done for social media; you do not really care.

I do not need an apology. It is the rough and tumble of politics. I ask all Deputies to co-operate. I call Deputy Alan Kelly.