Yesterday, I raised with the Taoiseach the scandal of a wealthy vulture fund buying up 46 of 54 homes at Belcamp Manor in north Dublin. These were homes that should have been available to workers and families to buy, to live in and to call home. Instead, the fund will rent them out for more than €3,000 a month. It is scandalous. Clearly, the Government's measures to stop the funds have not measured up. It is not just Sinn Féin saying this. Department officials warned Government last year that funds were still snapping up family homes from under the noses of ordinary home buyers. Yesterday, the Taoiseach dismissed this issue and sought to downplay what is a very serious problem in the midst of a housing crisis, so I will raise it with him again today.

In the case of the 1,200 homes that have been bulk purchased since the Government introduced its regulations in 2021, it is clear that the funds simply absorbed the 10% stamp duty and then carried on as normal. Nearly 700 of these homes were snapped up here in Dublin, but the vultures also bought up homes in Cork, Carlow, Westmeath, Kildare, Wicklow, Limerick and beyond. Their claws extend far beyond the capital and the damage they are doing is very real. If the bulk purchasing were not bad enough, we now also know that vulture funds bought up 6,000 homes in 2022, 2,000 of which were houses. In the year immediately following the introduction of the Government's regulations, the year after the Taoiseach said the Government was clamping down on these funds, we see that more homes than ever were being bought by these vulture funds. In fact, one in ten of all houses sold was bought by funds that year.

The Taoiseach should not play this down or pretend it is not happening. This is a big problem that cuts to the unfairness at the heart of the housing crisis and you cannot blame young people in particular for feeling that the table is tilted against them. This activity by vulture funds locks people out of homeownership and forces them into the private rental market, where the same funds then charge extortionate levels of rent. The Government also ensures that, when the rent money comes rolling in, funds do not pay a red cent of tax on that income.

Where is the urgency in Government to sort this out? The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, says the Government will review its measures but, as things stand, another Belcamp Manor could happen today if the Government does not act quickly. Tá sé thar am anois ag an Rialtas seasamh suas i gcomhair gnáthcheannaitheoirí tithe. Má tá sé dáiríre faoi stop a chur leis na creach-chistí atá ag ceannach tithe teaghlaigh, tacóidh sé le plean Shinn Féin anocht. Yesterday, the Taoiseach told me, and I believe him, that he does not like to see investment funds buying up family homes en masse, but actions speak louder than words. We have a motion before the Dáil tonight that would stop funds buying up family homes. Every TD can vote tonight to clip the wings of the vulture funds. The Government has a choice to make. It can continue to stand with the vulture funds or it can finally step in decisively on the side of ordinary home buyers and say this stops now. Which choice will you make, Taoiseach?

I thank the Deputy. As I said yesterday, the Government does not want to see investment funds buying up family homes that could be bought by individual families for their own use. That is why we changed the law in 2021 in respect of new planning permissions. This particular development got planning permission in 2019 and therefore does not fall under the law we changed in 2021. That is why this particular case has arisen. We have also put a supertax, a stamp duty of 10%, on the bulk purchase of homes. I hear what Sinn Féin is saying, which is that it wants that rate to be increased to 17%. I believe the Social Democrats have proposed 100% while other parties in the Opposition have proposed an outright ban, so even the Opposition is not united on the solution to this issue. We know when it comes to planning permissions granted after 2021 that we have already resolved the issue. What arises is developments that got planning permission before 2021. If we are going to make any changes to stamp duty, we need to examine them carefully to make sure any increase would be effective and that it would not have any unintended consequences. The fact the Opposition is divided three or four ways on this shows it is not a simple matter. While others in the Opposition might vote with Sinn Féin tonight, they do not actually agree with it, which tells a story in itself.

I would like to check out the numbers the Deputy has mentioned if she would supply me with them. Quite frankly, it is a higher number than I would have expected, but it may be the case that some of those bulk purchases were for social housing, which is quite different, or that some of them were not family homes. We have made a distinction between apartments and houses and family homes. I would like to interrogate those figures if the Deputy would be good enough to supply them to me.

The Deputy said that not one red cent in tax is paid. That is misinformation and is not correct. Tax is paid in the form of stamp duty when the properties are bulk purchased and, when dividends are paid out to shareholders, capital acquisitions tax applies. That was misinformation.

For clarity, I was referring to rental income. Not a red cent is paid on that.

No, there is tax on the dividends.

The level at which these rents stand should be borne in mind. Our motion this evening calls for a rate of at least 17%. We are simply reiterating what we told the Government at the time, that anything less than 17% would fail to be an adequate disincentive to clip the wings of the vulture funds. We are repeating that. I see no reason for the Taoiseach not to support the motion if he is, as he says, concerned with stopping this practice. I do not have to provide the figures I have quoted to the Taoiseach. The CSO has published them. The Taoiseach is not familiar with these figures but I put it to him that he should be. When he studies them, he will find they affirm that one in ten homes sold in the year 2021 were snapped up by these funds, some in bulk purchases and others in numbers that fall beneath that threshold. This is a significant issue rather than a marginal one. You got it wrong in 2021. Do not get it wrong again, Taoiseach.

I would genuinely like to see those figures and to have a few hours to interrogate them. The law was changed in 2021. If I remember correctly, it was changed in the course of the year, so what would be particularly interesting to see are the numbers for 2022 and 2023 because that is when the change would have had an effect.

I quoted them to you.

As I say, I would like to see them and interrogate them. To come back to what the Deputy said in respect of tax, companies and people are taxed differently. If you are an individual, such as a landlord, you pay income tax. Companies do not pay income tax. They never have. Companies pay corporation profit tax and when they issue a dividend to their shareholders, those shareholders pay capital acquisitions tax. That is how they are taxed. To say they do not pay a red cent in tax is misinformation.

You are completely wrong. You are completely wrong in terms of the tax burden on companies. Companies pay tax on rental income; REITs do not. That is the point.