Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his support for this provision. The examination I did on the family home was to satisfy myself that persons who lived in the family home and who previously were acting as carers could inherit the family home without any inheritance tax liability.

Having established that this was the case and that the conditions attached were not very onerous, I did not move to make changes in this regard. I changed the threshold from €225,000 to €280,000 because property prices have been increasing and the cuts the Government made in the thresholds on capital taxes were made when the State and the Exchequer were in penury and the Government needed every euro it could gather. However, the provisions now are fairer, and this will be reviewed in future years if I am in a position to so do. This year, while I initially looked beyond the parent-to-child transaction, I did not have enough resources to do anything more significant. My point is that it was not because I disagreed in principle but because I thought it better to dedicate the resources I had to parent-child transactions, rather than letting it go out to those in class B and class C.