Cllr. Deidre Wadding
PEOPLE BEFORE Profit General Election candidate Deirdre Wadding has said that the economic recovery of the country is being driven by property speculators, at the expense of more vital resources such as social housing.
The current Co. Councillor was speaking in response to recent news that Green REIT is putting a multi-million property portfolio on the market for almost €170m, a move which, she says, turns the spotlight onto the country’s latest property bubble.
Green REIT purchased a large amount of property after the Celtic Tiger crash and, according to Cllr. Wadding “is now making a fortune selling it off”.
Last year, the company made €156m in profit, a jump of 264% on the previous year. Its chairperson and chief executive were awarded a €21m share bonus between them.
Cllr. Wadding said: “The new bubble in commercial property prices shows that this recovery is being driven by property speculators. Their fortunes have recovered and many of the same people who brought this country to its knees are once again making vast amounts of money.”
The global index of firms, she pointed out, had stated that returns on the Irish commercial property were among the highest in the world and had been double the figures for London in 2015.
“Many of the big builders have used company law to walk away from their obligations and start off a new round of speculative activity elsewhere. The people of Adamstown in Dublin, for example, are still waiting on sports and community facilities that were included in a contract with Castethorn Investments. But its owner has moved off into new speculative ventures in Ballsbridge.”
She added: “The Fine Gael-Labour government facilitated this new orgy of speculation by giving a special tax break to Real Estate Investment Trusts as part of a deliberate effort to re-inflate the property bubble.”
Her party, she said, would impose a special solidarity tax on these speculators to “help pay for the damage they caused in the last crash”.
She insisted that she was not against new developments: “While new development in Wexford is welcome, we must remain vigilant and alert for the same kind of speculation and particularly in the case of NAMA property which is paid for by taxpayers and should, I believe, be handed over to local authorities for use as social housing.”
