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

We are in pre-budget season. Taxes are the means by which we fund State services. Deputy Barry is saying that he would prefer if people were given the opportunity to pay or not. If we were to do that with income tax or corporation tax, we would not be collecting the amount of money we are collecting and we would not have recovered from the tax revenues of a decade ago, at which time we had transactional taxes which were keeping the ship afloat. We now have a stable tax base. As I said, the yield from income tax is almost €22.5 billion. The next highest yield comes from VAT, followed by corporation taxes and excise and duties.

If we want to run the country and provide funds for the services which the Deputy decries we are not collecting enough tax, this is one of those taxes and one of the lesser taxes. It is a tax on the highest form of wealth in this country, which is property.