Dr. Barra Roantree:

I will add to that. The Chair highlighted some important issues. Fundamentally, one of the big challenges in addressing the cost of doing business and the cost of living is catching up with infrastructure we have not provided. That is something that will, sadly, take a number of years, but it is one of the important things in relation to that.

The Chair's comments relate to the wider issue of the concentration of the tax base. We are very reliant on a small number of multinationals paying large amounts of tax. This is something that the committee has dealt with on a number of occasions and that everyone appears to acknowledge, but we do not seem to be doing anything about it at the moment. Rather, as the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council pointed out to the committee in its recent evidence in relation to this, we are spending an increasing share of what the Department of Finance itself states are windfall tax receipts. It is not the case that we are setting aside more and more of these over time; we are actually spending more and more over time. As the Chair said, that puts us in a position where if something happens there that is out of control, we will end up in a position where there are lots of these areas that are perhaps overtaxed, or taxed in ways that do not necessarily align with the objectives we want.

On construction, in particular, there is a lot in what the Chair said. Rather than levying lots of development charges, connection charges and high rates of tax on the construction of new property, a strong case could be made for instead taxing existing property and having a higher local property tax. There are also questions about the level of taxation and how we raise the taxes we do. Those will come particularly to the fore if it were the case that we see a sudden evaporation in those corporation tax receipts. That is something that will again bring the issue of tax reliefs to the fore because if that does happen, there will be a need to raise revenues or cut spending elsewhere - some combination of those is more likely - and to look extensively at tax expenditures. Looking at the way we design those will be really important.