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

No, I never said that it would be tied to inflation. When I talked about indexation, I said there was never automatic indexation in the Irish system but in budgets Ministers took rising prices into account when they were designing whatever personal tax relief they were putting in place, so the same would apply here. The commitment in the programme for Government is to increase the tax threshold for inheritances from parents to children, only that particular category, from €280,000 to €500,000, but all the commitments in the programme for Government are over a five-year period. The media may have picked it up as if it was going to happen in one budget but it is not going to happen in one budget; it is not affordable. I would like to do something on inheritance tax but, as I say, if the figure of €500,000 is to be the destination, it will be done in steps, not in one jump.