Brian Walsh (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is hard to interpret the meaning of this. I am not familiar with Deputy Doherty's proposed legislation but I would like to make two observations. If one asks the average family what its greatest source of wealth is, the obvious answer will be the family home. With respect, Deputy Doherty is speaking out of both sides of his mouth here because he was vociferous in opposition to the introduction of a very modest household charge which was subsequently replaced by a property tax and yet he has no difficulty taxing the same family home through this proposal.

The second observation is that if one casts one's mind back to when the late Brian Lenihan introduced the infamous bank guarantee, it was introduced to protect deposits in banks. The introduction of an asset tax or a wealth tax would cause a huge flight of capital from the country at a time when we need to protect it. It would result in a massive loss of investment because the risk-takers would simply move their wealth or their assets to another jurisdiction where they would get a better return and where perhaps there would no property tax. For those two fundamental reasons, I cannot support this amendment.