Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I will be very brief. I apologise that I was delayed for a long time in the Chamber as I waited for my time to speak. I am glad to be here and to have heard some of the evidence.

On taxation, I have always dreaded frightening people who want to invest and create employment and who want to come here from abroad and set up business. Only early this morning I had a meeting with a person who reminded me of the clothing and shoe industry and how much of both we produced in Ireland at one point. Every bit of that business left us. It went to China, for instance, and now it is moving from there. It will make more moves again because it is a very fluid type of industry that goes to where the cost base is low. Our cost base is so high for all types of production that we are losing out on a lot of jobs. People might say that is an unusual statement to make when we are nearing full employment. However, I know people will understand what I mean when I explain that a high rate of tax can stifle.

Look at what has happened in the housing market and the rental market. Does anyone scratch their heads and wonder why 80,000 people sold property and no longer let it over the last eight or nine years? It is very easy. It is because they did not like paying 56% tax and having all the other issues that go with renting out property. They bailed out, much to our loss. There are people for whom we are seeking local authority housing that we cannot provide; we could get housing in the private market for them before but now we cannot because so many people have left. Like every public representative, I am getting calls every day about housing. We have lost so many from that sector. One of the reasons I am sure that we lost them is because of the high rate of tax. If anyone wants to debate it, it is not 50%. I often hear people in the Dáil say that it is expensive and that it is 50%, but it is not; it is 56% tax. That is what people are paying on their rental income. The Government has promised that it will do something, but it will be too late for all the people who have left that business and whose properties are no longer available and never will be because it will never again make sense to buy a property and rent it out.

I would love if the Government was able to build enough housing and we did not need to use the private sector at all, but, unfortunately, that is not the real world. When we talk about additional methods of taxing people and increasing taxation, the first thing we would want to do is look at whose tax we would reduce in order to try to stimulate the economy and encourage work. There are so many politicians in Dáil Éireann who seem to have something against work. They do not like work; they do not like the word or the idea of work and are of the view that it is not necessarily important to have to work. Everybody who can should work. People who are not able to work, older individuals or those who are disabled, should have every type of service and help in the world given to them, but the people who are young, fit and able should be encouraged to work. It should be attractive to work. If there are two choices between working and not working, it should not be attractive to not work. It should be obvious that you would roll up your sleeves and go away early in the morning and do a day’s work. And if you can fit two days work into one day, then that is exactly what you should be doing, especially when you are young. You should knock the most out of yourself and not be sparing yourself. Some of the politicians here do not think like that because they have a different mindset.

I am very sorry for going on too long. I thank the Chair for his indulgence.