Dr. Tom McDonnell:

I will pass on my paper on wealth tax to committee members.

On the question of employment, we were very conscious of the need not to increase the cost of employment. In that context, within our budgetary submission, new labour taxes amount to less than 10% of what we are proposing. Most of what we are proposing are new forms of capital and consumption taxation. We acknowledge that there is a regressive component within our budget related to the nutrition tax, excise duty on alcohol and so forth but we would urge the committee to look at our submission in its entirety. It is hugely progressive and is aimed at minimising negative employment effects. It should be noted that all taxes have costs as well as benefits, public spending has benefits and the issue is really about weighing these up against each other. Any contractionary measure is going to have a negative effect on employment and growth.

On the issue of the wealth tax, the €150 million estimate is conservative, in our view. We used €150 million ---