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

Well, I think, you know, low rates of corporate tax, low rates of capital gains tax and low rates of ... and competitive rates of income tax are consistent with an enterprise strategy. The difficulty, I think, what happened in those years is that property had taken over ... speculation had taken over from, if you like, a genuine enterprise sector and you see the figures yourself. I mean, there was an explosion, not only in, you know, capital gains tax but stamp duty receipts, VAT from housing. All of these property-based taxes became the heart of Government spending programmes. 25% of the cost for running hospitals was coming from these property-based structures.

That was unsustainable and, you know, what needed to be done was to sustain ... to have a credible approach to the whole building sector and to regrow your enterprise sector. So, consistent with that, we saw a capital gains tax at 20% ... is a reasonable approach for the ... for the enterprise sector. I mean, as you know, in government we have ... when more pressure came on, increased that tax by 65% in the last, you know ... in this ... in the present Government.