Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to respond because Deputy Doherty has made a lot of statements. The Deputy spoke about the facts earlier this morning. The fact is that for the past three years, the USC was cut and the people had the opportunity to spend the money as they got it back. That brought in more money. The Sinn Féin position is tax, tax, tax, and spend, spend, spend. It ignores the impact that has on the economy. The Deputy talks about money and numbers. He is able to ignore the wealth taxes that are there that the Minister spoke about earlier, and will ignore the fact that the property tax is a wealth tax and that capital gains tax and capital acquisitions tax, CAT, bring in nearly €1 billion.

The Deputy wants to ignore that those are wealth taxes. It is as if we will forget that amount of almost €1 billion. The Sinn Féin position on taxing wealth is it should only apply to the "wealthy", the evil people over there with properties worth more than €1 million etc. It wants to bring in a wealth tax but ignore the facts. Sinn Féin's policy equates to cloud cuckoo land economics. It is nuts.