Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

The Deputy can come back in again later. In the opening statement, Dr. McDonnell said the institute would consider some lower taxes that could be adjusted. One was property tax, but he never mentioned all of the other ones that have increased. Some properties have doubled in value because the cost of building has increased from €120 per sq. ft to €200 per sq. ft., so there has been an 80% increase in the value of property. Insurance follows that, as do energy costs. These are all increases. The cost of living has also increased. Another tax is the planning permission charge. People pay for water, ESB and sewerage connection and are charged a planning permission fee, as well as fees for lights and footpaths which they will never see or use. In an urban setting, there are streetscapes, lights, footpaths and everything and they also have lower rates because of the smaller square footage of properties.

Turning to carbon tax, there are 2.3 million vehicles on the roads today. People are paying higher maintenance charges and fuel taxes. It has been stated that we are at almost full employment, despite an increase of almost 1 million in our population. Extra revenue and taxes come from that. The question as to where we can adjust for more taxes is then asked. There could be two people working in a household, which I call the squeezed middle, who can hardly put food on the table and have no funds left, and we are talking about more taxes.

On the flipside, there is the question of governance and Departments. There are overruns on capital projects of millions upon millions of euro, even into billions, but there is no accountability. I have been self-employed for 30 years and I know that if I had an overrun year on year, I would not be in business. I am a blocklayer by trade. I would probably be better off giving up my job here and laying a few blocks because I would be financially a lot better off, but I would have a bad back. I would have to respectfully not do that. The same people are being hit all of the time. Yet, when we go to governance, there is no accountability.

The institute alluded to overruns. I referred to design and delivery at a previous meeting. In terms of design and delivery, it was said the onus goes back to the contractor. The proper term for that would be design and deliver. It costs between 5% to 8% more, but we would know exactly what we were spending. A €1 million project costs €1 million. If there is an overrun, it is €1 million - that is it. Any time Departments are stuck with any capital projects, there are overruns because people say they do not like or want to move something. A perfect example of this is the children's hospital, which was rolled over repeatedly. Things went out of date and costs increased, and it went back to design.

With the tax regime that we have at the moment, how many billions of euro could be saved if we introduced design and delivery and mirrored capital and private projects against each other? Private businesses build projects and come in on target and on time, and make a profit. Government projects go over budget and make no profit. Not only do the projects go over budget but they lose the profit that private companies make. Our European counterparts seem to be able to do this, but we cannot. How do we change that?