Mr. Charlie McCreevy:

I certainly ... I was aware that the Government subsequently done a report that you’re referring to there but I certainly had never read the report, so I’m not too sure as to what they said. But the Government and the Department of Finance would at all times, even in my time, be assessing the validity of various schemes. So, I understand, in 2006, as you said, they got a big report done on all of those schemes. But it’s hard to like ... since I haven’t read the report, I can’t comment on the specifics of it, but it’s hard to make such a sweeping statement that all the property tax reliefs in all of that period contributed to house price inflation, in particular. Like, since the schemes to which I were responsible for introducing, were such like for nursing homes, rural renewal ... I certainly would ... I can argue the toss about rural renewal; it’s a fairly ... But it’s hard to think how the nursing homes relief escalated the property price of housing - child care facilities in the 1999 Finance Act, student accommodation I did in the ’99 Act, park and ride, which, I think, there was a very little uptake on it.

There wasn't ... as far as I know, in my time, from answering questions in the Dáil, I'm not too sure whether really did anybody take it up, up certainly to the end of 2002 in any event, maybe someone did. We brought in town renewal ... and actually town renewal ... the number of towns that took it up, were a lot less then we had envisaged at the outset ... there was a list of a couple of hundred. Private hospitals ... there was a relief brought in in 2000, sports reliefs in 2002-----