Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I became aware that for instance, developments like, say, multi-storey car parks were becoming vehicles not simply for development but they were becoming vehicles for tax avoidance by high net worth individuals and in this, there was just a very significant build-up of what I felt was activity, not for the purposes of the genuine development which the country needed, but development of activity for acquiring tax breaks and, therefore, shielding wealth from taxation. And that contrasted, you know, very sharply with say, small businesses, or, indeed, individuals who couldn't have utilised those kind of breaks. And in every budget there was a series of additional tax breaks built in, which were essentially designed to stimulate activity but became even more so a tax avoidance mechanism. I actually campaigned around tax justice, that allowing somebody with a €1 million income to pay tax of 0% to 5% was actually wrong and economically not proper. And as time went by in the period 2002-2007, partly because, for instance, of ads in the paper, you saw that high net worth individuals were invited by various organisations to participate and invest into opportunities that were available. And, Deputy, almost all of those opportunities were construction-related. And, you know, that was my concern.