Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree. The second-hand car market was mentioned. When a car is traded in, dealers should take account of where it is going and the trade-in price or whatever. They will have to plan accordingly and will do so in order not to lose half a fortune in the course of it.

Gaming and e-gambling bring the concept of gambling much closer to the gambler or the speculator or whatever we call it. Is Mr. Cody satisfied that sufficient resources are available to the Department to ensure gambling does not become a kind of pandemic racing out of control? The availability of the technology to the person who is speculating in that area is much greater and more sophisticated than it was and it has ways and means of encouraging participation, which we need to keep a close eye on.

I stay away from policy. I noticed, incidentally, that the job of the Committee of Public Accounts is explicitly to stay away from policy. It does wander into that area but there are very strict regulations insofar as it wanders into that area and I am quite sure Mr. Cody has reminded the committee of that. If he has not, I have had to do so on several occasions.

I will finish with this possibility. Where businessmen or women decide to move to a different location in the country for business purposes or whatever compelling reason, they will rent a house and rent out their existing house because they are not going to buy a house for a short time of two, three, four or five years or whatever the case may be. My speculation is there should be a contra figure where the expenditure on one side is offset against the income on the other side. That does not apply at the moment and I have come across a few cases like that. I fail to understand why that cannot be done. I am not suggesting Mr. Cody should go into the policy part of this but I have views on it. We have all dealt with these issues from time to time and there are some compelling cases where taxpayers should not have been at a loss due to having to move their business for all kinds of reasons. They would have had an income and would have lost on both counts. Such people pay for an extra house or accommodation and they lose the income from the house they have rented out.

I will not go through the rest. I will be good as we only have ten minutes left. There are oodles of cases. I would love to have at least an hour to go through them but Mr. Cody will be glad to know I will reserve them for another date. I am sure the Chair agrees.