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

Well obviously, between 4.2% and 8% you had inflation, which was running around two and you had the 2% margin. So, we, we projected in line with the policy that we had pursued back in 2002 and was consistent that growth should ... that growth in public spending could be somewhat higher but have to be within the pattern with growth of the economy. What had been going ... in the years prior to that, was huge surges in spending, totally unrelated, and the reason why that was possible was that the stamp duty and the property taxes and so on were, were coming in. So, we very clearly said, you know, we need stamp duty as, as stamp duty as you probably will recall, was an extraordinary tax. It was a step tax; it grew in this exponential basis so that when you went over certain thresholds, you went from maybe zero to paying €10,000 or from paying €11,000 to paying €22,000.