Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Let us be clear on this. This is the sale of over €1 billion of property in the state. If a company in Ireland sold off hotels, apartments, shopping centres, residential units and so on a 7.5% stamp duty would apply but because this structure can sell the shares as a means of selling the property it gets away with paying stamp duty at 1%. It is ridiculous. It is a massive loophole that the Minister's officials sought to close-off in this Finance Bill. It is not acceptable to continue to support these types of structures in the way we have been doing.

We had a discussion yesterday in regard to how no capital gains applies to them. No corporation tax applies to the rents that are received and now when they are disposing of the property they can do it by way of the sale of shares and, therefore, pay only a fraction of the stamp duty that would apply to other structures.