Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

When looking at wealth, particularly in terms of net wealth, the Government parties have ensured that many people who have bought their homes at this point in time are paying an arm and a leg - half a million euro and more - for houses now. In parts of this city, the average cost of a home is now €600,000. As people are mortgaged to the hilt, to say that them having a home is now a form of net wealth is nonsense. There are other areas where wealth can be tackled - and we will deal with it in the Finance Bill - such as pensions, inheritance and different assets. The Minister has mentioned that different types of wealth taxes apply to different transactions. Let us deal in reality. We are not naive here. In one part of the Finance Bill we are dealing with today, an income earner can get a €105,000 of a tax reduction. A developer can build apartments and make €2.5 million profit and yet not pay a penny in tax. Big investors here can have a rent roll in the hundreds of millions and pay no tax. There are loads of exemptions in the tax code that have been stitched in over many years that allow people to reduce their tax liability to very low levels. That is why there needs to be a careful, measured view of the taxation of wealth. Of course we live in a global society and wealth is mobile and all the rest but there is a need for fairness. However, I will defend to the hilt the idea that property should not be taxed, for example, for people on very low income. Incidentally, Jeremy Corbyn argued for that in Britain. He argued that the rates system should be abolished and a property tax should be introduced but actually the lowest levels of homes would be exempt from it. While property of course will be a part of it, there must be caveats to make sure the Government does not tax what is not net wealth in the first instance and to recognise that the family home should not be turned into a financial asset. This is the commodification of housing, which is at the very core of what has happened here in terms of a disastrous housing crisis that has allowed for a crisis to develop, not as a natural disaster or as a result of some unseen consequences, but as a result of policies by this committee. This committee deals with Finance Bills, expenditure and budgets. It takes decisions year after year that have resulted in one of the most disastrous things this State has seen and that is the housing crisis. That is on your backs folks. You have created this housing crisis.