Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I had more or less concluded. Why were these tax breaks introduced for property investors and speculators in the first place? I still do not understand why it was done. Is there a recognition at this point that it was a mistake? I may have asked this through tabling parliamentary questions, as has Deputy Donnelly. Do we have any idea of how much tax was forgone as a result of the tax breaks in capital gains and in tax on profits and so on that these property investors made since they were introduced? It is criminal if we do not know.

On the 25% threshold, why do we need a threshold? The Minister of State has said that the majority of these property investment entities or vehicles will have more than 25% and so most of them will be captured. Will the Minister of State supply the evidence to back that up? What will be captured? What assets do they have? What proportion of this sector do they represent? What will not be captured? This would give us some sense of what we might be gaining or losing as a consequence of the 25% threshold.

Does the Minister of State have any comment on our view that we should just capture? Given that property values have gone through the roof, should we not try to recoup as much of the increase in value of these property assets that they will walk away with? If they hold on for five years, they could all sell at the end of the five years, which as Deputy Pearse Doherty has suggested, in some cases is now about six months away. They will walk away with 80% of the appreciation in the value of those assets. Why should we let them do that?