Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister of State will know, I favour the financial transaction tax being imposed. The Government is resistant to the measure and often cites, when I make the point that the tax should imposed, that we do not need it because we have the 1% levy. I am not satisfied with the counter-argument but it gives the game away to some extent and reveals the Government's real attitude towards an increased level of tax on gambling on the Stock Exchange, speculation and so on. The Government believes the way to deal with a lack of investment in the economy is to remove this paltry stamp duty on activities in the Stock Exchange. I do not believe that stock exchanges or casino capitalism is the way to finance an economy, industrial development and growth. The provision is just more of the type of stuff that destabilised the global economy.

I am not in favour of it. I want to see small and medium-sized enterprises get a boost but I do not think getting down on our knees before speculators and doing it the way the markets want to do it is the way to deal with it. We could give them a break on rates, deal with parking charges and put some demand into the economy. I am not in favour of reducing taxes in what is essentially an area of speculation and gambling.