Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I accept that Revenue has been applying the provisions the Minister has outlined in respect of how this is operating. I do make the point that we are changing the law. Intent is one thing and that is fine. The law does not say "purchased". There would be a risk here if this were legally challenged because we do not have the word "purchased" in it. I understand that is why the Minister is bringing that clarity and limiting the risk. It is something I support and I do not have an issue in that regard. However, I am very mindful of the idea of looking at retrospective legislation. It is not something we should be doing. I am not suggesting we should do that. What I am saying is we need to look at the options.

Maybe we cannot do anything on this but I think the Department needs to be tasked with examining this measure, considering how it is interacting with property sales at this time, particularly in terms of landlords and looking at all the options. That should be published so that we would have a clear view. It might be the case we would say it is a policy designed at a time when we were in a different environment that is now having bad consequences but there is little we can do about it. That might be the outcome. We need to look at this. We need to be looking at all of the levers in respect of housing, and having an incentive of this size to sell a property is really significant. The numbers are what they are. In excess of 560 properties were sold in 2011. They could be properties bought in the first year of the scheme or in the last year of the scheme. We do not know. The CGT increased every year a person held on. People may have been gambling that property prices were going up by €20,000 a year while their CGT would only go up by about €7,000 and deciding to take that gamble. That is fine, it is what people do and what tax advisers advise them. The advice now is different. It is that we might be at peak market. The interest rate environment may have an effect on property prices. We have not seen it yet in Ireland but it has happened across Europe. Capital gains tax is only going to increase. We need to look at it. That is all I am saying. I will leave it at that.