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

Well, clearly we have advocated that tax expenditure should be put under the same scrutiny as anything else and I think that has been a consistent part of the budgetary strategy we articulated in those years because I think it is true, as the Deputy said, that a huge commitment, that no one had known the size of it, to the property sector had built up and it was renewed each year and there wasn't scrutiny. And the same was true of many other tax expenditures. So, our view was that you did need to introduce such scrutiny and evaluation in the same way as you would ... well, you needed scrutiny and evaluation on the spending side and the ... you know, one of the problems in those years that the mechanisms that were in place for evaluation, which were sanctioned by the 1997 Act, were simply not implemented by Government in those years. So, you know, the evaluative machinery wasn't in place to do the work that ought to have been done on tax expenditures as well as many of the other areas of waste.