Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

We absolutely do have recurring taxes on property and the Minister outlined them earlier. There is the capital gains tax, inheritance tax, CAT and local property tax. We are probably one of the few countries in the world where people who describe themselves as being on the left decided they would set their face against local property taxes. We know that the bulk of wealth, or at least a very significant proportion of it, is held in property and land. That is a particularly Irish phenomenon and is in evidence in the UK as well. There is a strong argument to be made for progressive local property taxes, and maybe generating more from that in time and giving people the opportunity to have less of a tax wedge - I do not like to use the word "burden" - on their income. That is an argument for another day.

It seems to be part of the Irish political condition that we only look to broaden and deepen the tax base when the economy is in trouble. That has been the experience and we all lived through that a number of years ago. I would argue and I think Deputy O'Callaghan would as well that there is more we ought to be doing now in terms of taking a countercyclical approach given the challenges we have to our tax base, such as our disproportionate reliance on foreign direct investment, the revenue that arises from corporation tax and the risks that are posed to our income tax base. There is also the progressivity of our income tax base and the reliance on good jobs and therefore the income taxes from that.

The Minister is very familiar with the arguments and I am very pleased to hear the ESRI is undertaking significant research building on the work it did almost ten years ago on household wealth. That is under way now. I assume, as the Minister said the research will not be available in six months' time, that it may be available in time for the next budget. I hope it is in good time for the next budget to maybe inform the Minister's own consideration of taxation and other measures that will be considered ahead of budget 2027. In the context of wealth taxes, I ask the Minister to look closely at what our socialist colleague in Spain, Pedro Sánchez, managed to do. He introduced a discrete net wealth tax that seems to work. It seems to point in a certain direction of a wealth tax that would work where there are, by necessity, some exemptions but not too many in terms of the family home, related business, land and so on. It seems to work in that it has not prompted what we might describe as a flight of wealth from Spain. It is complied with. It works with the minimum amount of grumbling, which is a good thing, and it is something we might take a closer look at. I look forward to seeing the outcome of the ESRI work. Will the Minister indicate when he expects that work might be made available, if not in six months' time, so we can scrutinise it and maybe consider it ahead of budget 2027, which seems like a long way away but is not?