Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)

I thank the Minister for his response. There are a number of things I want to respond to. Consideration of the introduction of a wealth tax certainly should not be done as an isolated measure. It should be done as part of our need to broaden the tax base. It makes sense in that respect. I am not arguing for this in terms of any sort of narrowing of the tax base or as a measure in absolute isolation. In terms of support for broad measures to broaden the tax base, there is good credibility in that area.

I hope we will not be in a crisis economic situation any time too soon but the time to do things to broaden out the tax base is not in a crisis situation. The hardest time to broaden out the tax base is in a crisis situation. That is often when it happens because there is a necessity around it but really, we need to be doing this in the more stable times when there are fewer potential impacts, side effects and all the rest. What we actually need to do in terms of responsibility for the economy and our tax take is to be taking those measures consistently in more stable times so that when we hit a crisis, a lot of the measures we need are already in place. I make that point to the Minister.

The issue of growing wealth inequality, both in Ireland and globally, does need to be tackled. A growing concentration of wealth is not good in economic terms. Thomas Piketty has gone into that matter in considerable detail. I am certainly not making the case that there is no taxation on wealth, but taxation on wealth that is mainly concentrated on transactions is a very particular form of tacking wealth. A lot of wealth does not necessarily go through transactions and can escape taxation there. Transactions are not necessarily a bad thing either. Transactions can be a good thing in an economy. Effectively, for large wealth holders, if they are mainly only getting caught for taxation through transactions, that is not necessarily the best place for the entire emphasis to be so I think broadening of that makes sense.