"Galway Must Not Become The Site Of The Next Vulture Feeding Frenzy" - Ian Ó Dálaigh
Galway must not become the site of the next vulture landlord feeding frenzy — so says Éirígí Gaillimh spokesperson Ian Ó Dálaigh. He was responding to recent comments by Margaret Sweeney, the CEO of IRES REIT, when she said that she saw “further opportunities to grow in the likes of Cork, Limerick and Galway”. Speaking from Galway, Ó Dálaigh said,
“IRES REIT is Ireland’s largest private landlord, with nearly 4,000 Irish homes already under its control. As a result of legislation introduced by Fine Gael and Labour in 2013, all Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs, pay a rate of 0% corporation tax on the rental income from the homes that they rent out.
In the case of IRES REIT, that means that they pay no tax on tens of millions of euros of rental income each year. Up until now IRES have been almost exclusively focused on the greater Dublin area. The fact that IRES are now actively looking to expand their operations to Galway is bad news for ordinary people, many of whom are already priced out of renting or buying a home.
Of course, Galway already knows all about the vulture takeover of housing, with ‘our own’ Comer Group already owning 1% of all the housing stock in the city and county. There are also other examples of vulture landlords getting their hands on Galway homes, such as Carysfort Capital’s ‘Western Portfolio’ in Doughiska.
And now we have the Crown Square development in Mervue, and the proposed Augustine Hill development in the city centre as examples of new housing developments that are destined for vulture landlord ownership. And more Build-To-Rent developments are coming through the planning process.
Éirígí activists at the site of the new Crown Square development
If IRES REIT and other vulture landlords move into Galway, it will only make an already disastrous housing situation much worse. The additional funds that that the vultures will bring into the Galway housing market will inevitably drive purchase and rental prices ever higher.
We only need to look at the cost of housing in areas like South Dublin, where the vultures have been active for a number of years, to see what will happen in Galway if it becomes the next location for a vulture landlord feeding frenzy.
None of this has happened by accident. Government housing policies have prioritised vulture landlords over the people of Ireland for the last decade - effectively pouring fuel on the fire that is the housing crisis.
The government and the main opposition political parties believe that the vulture landlords have a role to play in solving the housing crisis - that we simply need to mitigate against them dominating the housing market.
Éirígí fundamentally disagrees with this position and is calling for an outright ban on the corporate ownership of housing, and the creation of an entirely new system of Universal Public Housing – a system where rent is linked to household income, where long-term security of tenure is provided for and which is open to all regardless of income.
This is the ONLY way to permanently end the housing crisis, and radically transform Irish society for the better in the process”.
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