Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not know who Deputy Doherty is accusing of kicking and screaming but it is not me. In the debate on the Finance Bill two years ago I said that in dealing with the IREFs I would collect information on their operation and the way in which they were being taxed. When I collected that information, I then acted. The Deputy has acknowledged that. I have made some very important changes in respect of how IREFs are taxed. I will always keep under review the measures in other jurisdictions and what is appropriate for us.

On the role of these entities and commercial property, some 70% percent of the property held by REITs is commercial property. One of the reasons I made the case for there being a role for REITs was to ensure that in the event of there being changes in our commercial property market we would have a more diverse set of landlords in that market. Across the coming year we will see what the role of REITs is, given the kind of change that is under way in the commercial property market at the moment.

In respect of IREFs, I made a significant change last year regarding how they are taxed. On the point the Deputy made on whether these entities are playing a role in driving up prices in the property sector, in particular the residential property sector, the top 19 landlords, that is, those with at least 200 tenancies, now account for 3.25% of all tenancies in the country.

Even though these organisations do have scale, in many cases the apartments they have been buying have been built in the first place because these organisations are available to buy them. In some cases we have seen forward supply where, in particular, these apartments are built for entities like this that then go on to purchase them. They are not of the scale or size that they are influencing property prices in the way the Deputy is suggesting but I will always keep how these are taxed under review to decide if we are taxing them appropriately. As the Deputy is aware these entities are taxed at the moment in which they distribute their income. For Iris in particular I looked at this in last year’s budget and I will continue to monitor what is the right way of taxing them.