Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In 2004 my ... I mean, I don't have the document to which you're referring but from what you describe of it, it would appear that there was some projects coming to the end of a period and there were some projects who were in planning and there was an issue of could they, you know, complete their planning within the terms of the scheme? And naturally that is something that, you know, is worthy of consideration if a lot of effort had been put into an individual project under ... if you like, with the reasonable expectation that they would get support.

But you know, across the board we were not supportive of tax breaks and I can, you know, cite numerous examples. This debate raged ... it was around 2002 when the Government identified that some of the tax breaks were not fit for purpose and I recall an Indecon report showing that the benefits were less than half of the costs and there was clearly evidence that the construction sector was becoming stronger and stronger. The house building programme, as you know, built to extraordinary levels. It was not a time to continue those reliefs. And we consistently opposed the extension of those reliefs as a policy tool.