Ms Bairbre Nic Aongusa:

Absolutely. We are not at all talking about any degree of compulsion. The financial assessment carried out at the moment is that, if the house is rented out, 80% of the income falls to be assessed. One could argue that there is a disincentive at the moment to do anything with the vacant property while the person is in the nursing home, even when the adult children may want to rent it out or something like that. The Chairman is absolutely right. Our main concern is that we do not have the information we need. We have been talking with the Housing Agency and the Department of Health about whether we need to do some research to get more information on precisely what the Chairman is saying. How many people in nursing homes have spouses or other relatives who are in the principal private residence? In that case, it is not vacant. It is something that comes up a lot, but it always comes up anecdotally, so we do not actually have much hard evidence. Our first task will be to try to get some evidence on that.

I also did not get an opportunity to read out my opening statement so I am referring back to quite a number of things that were in my opening statement. One of the issues mentioned was the issue of taxation. The tax treatment of landlords is quite a big piece of the rental strategy. In my opening statement, I referred to the fact that the Department of Finance has set up a working group. My colleague, Mr. Earnán Ó Cléirigh, is a member of the group. If it is okay with the Chairman, he will say a few words about the work of the group and deal with some of the taxation issues that were mentioned.