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

On the number of people living at home, I have experienced it myself. I have four sons, two partners and two grandchildren living with me. I am a building contractor. Each time they try to get on the ladder they are finding it next to impossible to get on the ladder. Every time they are saving and trying to meet the criteria from the banking system, they save hard for 12 months and it is shoved out again and again. It is so hard for them to get on the ladder, and they all work very hard. If they are a couple they have some chance, but if they are a couple with a dependant, they have no chance because the criteria to raise funds for a mortgage with a dependant mean there is too much of a gap for them to get to. Where I am coming back to is that down the line, you might have a grandparent or somebody who wanted to leave them their house or who were in that position. Speaking to a lot of younger people in the same criteria who are trying to get on the housing ladder, they say if they inherit a house or a property for whatever reason to try to get them on the ladder there are tax implications in it. It is the same as land, if you have two generations of farmers where one worked hard and is trying to get the other one on the ladder for them to have some quality of life. It is now generation after generation, and there is no handing over or handing anything down.

If they leave something behind, it is a taxable commodity. It will be taxed. People say to me that they have worked all their lives and if they get to a stage where they have to be cared for - they may have savings from having worked hard and paid their taxes throughout their lives; they have paid tax for people who cannot work - and they have to go to a nursing home, the cost will be taken out of whatever savings they have. However, they say that if people who never worked a day in their lives, and never wanted to, get to the same place, the same criteria do not apply. They have no problem with working and paying for vulnerable people, but when it comes to the end of their lives and they want to go to a nursing home, they have to pay the money they have been able to save over 50 or 60 years, up to a threshold, before they even qualify for the fair deal scheme. What I am hearing from people at the moment is that some people change their circumstances in order to qualify for things. They say they are better off not working because their child could go to college or they could put their names down on a housing list. How can we incentivise people who want to work and to contribute to people who cannot work for whatever reason ? How can we give them a reward system? If they work all their lives to protect people who cannot work, what reward system could be put in place so that the next generation might be able to have it a little easier?