I want to read the Minister an email I received recently. In the email, the person who contacted me says:

I'm 36 years old, working in a full-time job as an IT professional for a global multinational. I have savings and continue to put as much of my salary away as I can afford. Although I earn above the median income and have a stable job, I am forced to share a house with 5 other full time working professionals aged from late 20s to early 40s. Our rental house is owned by a global hedge fund. For each of us the prospect of home ownership or renting a property of our own is a laughable proposition. I'll be close to 50 by the time I've got enough of a deposit to afford a mortgage. This government, and every government of my adult lifetime, have let me down.

Why is it that this Government is so determined to prioritise the interests of investment funds over those of people who want to own a home? Last year, when it was revealed that an investment fund was purchasing 135 out of 170 homes at Mullen Park, Maynooth, the Government said it was an isolated incident and was unacceptable. What does the Minister have to say to the revelations in the Business Post this week that funds snapped up more than 350 houses in the past year? That is nearly three times the number of homes that were going to be sold in Mullen Park. We told the Minister that a 10% stamp duty rate would not be a sufficient deterrent but he refused to listen. He again refused to listen when we raised concerns in February about the activity of a fund called Orange Capital Partners. At the time, the Irish Independent reported that the fund was buying up 300 homes in Dublin, including a number of homes in Portmarnock in the Minister's constituency. The fund did not care how much it paid for these homes. To be precise, it said: "it is irrelevant what we pay for them." The rental market in Ireland is so lucrative that funds know they are guaranteed big profits, regardless of what they pay.

How are first-time buyers and families supposed to compete with funds with bottomless pockets? Is it any wonder that the number of first-time buyers in Dublin has decreased by 30% in the past five years? Irish people are now almost 40 years old before they can buy their first homes. Under this Government, more and more people are being locked out of home ownership. Will the Minister finally listen and act decisively to ban investment funds from buying homes in bulk? Will the Minister include apartments in that ban?

I thank the Deputy and what he refers to as a "revelation" in the Business Post was no such thing. I brought a memo to Cabinet three weeks ago detailing the measures we brought forward over a year ago to protect first-time buyers against bulk purchases. What the Deputy has neglected to say is that in that period of time planning permissions have been granted for over 16,000 homes with the condition that they cannot be sold on a bulk basis. That is a fact and that has happened in just the space of one year.

I refer to the revelation the Deputy mentioned with the 351 homes. Mullen Park, as the Deputy knows, was not sold to investor funds. Those houses were sold for individual sale, which the Deputy has neglected to say. There were 47,000 house sales over the last 12 months, 351 of which were to investment funds, which is about 0.7% of the overall sales. The measures this Government and I have taken relate to planning going forward and they are working. We have levelled the playing pitch for first-time buyers and first-time buyers are up to the highest level on new mortgages that they have been since 2007.

I support home ownership and I want the person who has emailed the Deputy to be able to own his or her own home. That is why we have supported the help to buy grant, which the Social Democrats opposes. It is a €30,000 tax rebate that helps people to get their deposits together. I wonder if the Deputy will say that in his response to the person who emailed him. Will he also tell the person that the Social Democrats was one of the few parties to oppose the Affordable Housing Act 2021? The Social Democrats opposes cost rental, which is delivering hundreds of tenancies for people on a 40-year minimum basis on secure tenure and at 50% below the market rent. That allows for the direct build of affordable purchase homes, and the Deputy opposed 253 of those being built in Ballymastone in his county of Fingal in north County Dublin. Furthermore, the Deputy is on record as opposing what is probably the most significant measure that will be taken, which is the first home shared equity scheme which we will launch in July. That will help the person who emailed the Deputy to bridge the gap between the finance the person has and the finance needed by the State taking an equity, not by a second mortgage as the Deputy claimed last year when we brought it forward.

We bring forward these measures, including the €4 billion per annum we are bringing forward under Housing for All, because this Government has a housing plan that is published and financed. The Social Democrats, in comparison, has a lack of housing policies and a lack of finance behind any of the measures it wants to bring forward. We are clear on what we want to do and we are seeing commencements up to the highest level since 2007, with over 30,000 commencements in the 12 months to May, the highest quarter commencements and completions. We want to help people own their homes. The measures we have brought forward are targeted to do that. We want to build more social homes than we have ever done before and we are targeting 9,000 new build social homes this year through Housing for All as part of the 90,000 we will deliver between now and 2030.

It is a pity that the Minister spent most of his time making attacks. People do not want to hear attacks back and forth; they want us to discuss solutions. I have a couple of facts for the Minister. First, 82% of planning permissions in Dublin city in 2020 were for build to rent schemes, which are exclusively bought by investment funds so there is no individual purchase in that. More than €100 million was spent last year by investment funds in buying up houses. Last year, not a single affordable purchase home was delivered by the Government; it was only 65 cost rental homes. The reality in home ownership is that the level of it continued to fall last year. Fewer than 6,000 new build homes were available for individuals to buy, which has fallen on previous years. Will the Minister act decisively to ban investment funds from bulk buying homes and will he include apartments in that ban?

I was not trying to score any political points. I was just stating the facts of the Social Democrats position and of what we are bringing forward as a Government on affordability measures because we support home ownership, social housing and social housing delivery. We have a plan that is fully funded on a multi-annual basis to do that and that plan is starting to take hold. There is no question that we will turn this around in a year or two but the plan is starting to take hold. We are seeing direct build affordable homes in the Deputy's county of Fingal, in Cork and right across the country, hundreds of which will be delivered this year. Hundreds more cost rental homes will be delivered and the first home shared equity schemes will begin, which will be a significant measure to help those who need that assistance from the State by bridging the affordability gap for them. The planning measures we have brought forward are working and I have just given the Deputy the facts on that. Some 16,000 new planning permissions have been granted with the condition that the homes cannot be sold to funds. Let us be realistic when the Deputy talks about this revelation. We are talking about 0.7% of homes that were sold over the last 12 months. Let us not try to make an issue that does not exist. We support home ownership and we need supply across all areas, including rental, social, affordable and private, and that is what we are determined to do.