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

I will not spend much time on Brexit. Would Dr. McQuinn agree that many of the things that could be issues for us as a result of Brexit are really difficult to pin down at this point? We had the fluctuations, but on a range of other things we just do know what could be the potential impacts. There could be upsides and downsides. While I agree with Dr. McQuinn's point about encouraging greater diversification in export markets, do we not just need greater diversification in the economy beyond that? It is not just in the export area and there may be a necessity to develop other sectors of the economy that are not quite as vulnerable to fluctuations in the international markets.

I will say no more about that because much of it is intangible.

I welcome strongly the ESRI's comments on housing and pensions. It is absolutely right. Perhaps the witnesses can elaborate a little albeit they must obviously be slightly cautious about being too prescriptive. The ESRI seems to be saying in a fairly forthright manner that there are big questions about tax expenditures benefitting private developers as a mechanism to deal with the housing crisis. It is very strong on saying we must increase significantly the output of public and affordable housing. The ESRI notes that we are still well below the expenditure levels in those areas that obtained even back in 2011, which is a very important point. By the way, the level in 2011 was not enough either as we had a housing crisis then too. Perhaps the witnesses would like to elaborate on that. I agree with them strongly, if that is what they are hinting at.

It emerged today that developers are saying they cannot build anything for less than €320,000, which is partly linked to what the banks are demanding. All that points to the folly of reliance on private developers to get us out of this mess. It would be cheaper to borrow the money and use public land to build directly. At every level, it makes more sense to ramp up direct expenditure on public and affordable housing rather than to rely on the market and tax incentives to encourage developers. Perhaps the witnesses will comment on that. I agree on the site levy but one must think about the extent to which it would actually force these guys to do anything.

Do the witnesses have any comment on things like section 110 as a big area? Is it a problem, as I certainly believe it to be, that the Government cannot even tell us in response to parliamentary questions how much tax revenue has been forgone, or is likely to be, as a result of the section 110 break on rental income for vulture funds as well as on capital gains? That is shocking when we are looking for extra fiscal space. We have put down parliamentary questions, but the Government cannot tell us notwithstanding the fact that this is clearly a massive expenditure. There is no doubt that these people who have bought up all this stuff are going to make massive capital gains. They are clearly making big rental income profits currently but we do not know how much tax is being forgone in the area and cannot get an answer from the Department. I do not know what the ESRI thinks, but I find it shocking.

I agree that the public pensions system seems much more efficient and safe. Do we need to look at tax expenditures on private pension tax breaks where they are benefitting high income earners with what one might call "gold-plated pensions", in particular, and start to reduce those tax expenditures and redirect the money to a better public pensions system with higher pensions for pensioners?