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

I completely get the point. I read the documentation so I get the point. I wish to underline, however, that a double standard is being applied here. Mr. Coffey is arguing for prudence and great care when it comes to counting revenue or the economic impact of dealing with the backlog in housing - with which we absolutely have to deal - through increasing supply through construction, but not applying the same prudence when it comes to the distorting, unbalancing effect of foreign direct investment. We agree, I believe, that there should not be debt financing of any of these things and that we should keep an eye on them. Given what Mr. Coffey is saying and the distortion effects, involving in one case an actual social crisis which must be dealt with - namely, the housing supply crisis - and which is macroeconomic in nature at a range of levels, would it not be logical to say that if addressing those should be done by debt financing, it must be done by raising extra tax revenue? This is what we have always advocated. I agree on what we have do to regarding housing. Mr. Coffey seems to be saying we have to do it. I agree we have to do it. This gives rise to a question as to the most prudent place to raise the extra tax revenue. Would it not be logical and prudent, in the interests of macroeconomic balance - with which the council is concerned, although remaining careful about policy - to increase investment in that area from the revenues in those distorted sectors, as we have argued for some time? This might have the advantage of, to some extent, putting a lid on the more dangerous aspects of those sectors. I refer to raising extra taxes from the vulture funds, which are now distorting the property market and walking away paying almost no tax, and the multinational sector. From a macro-economic point of view, is that not the most obvious and prudent place to get the extra revenue we need to finance what is required?