John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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That is reassuring because in the last few paragraphs he has said a lot about what "we" need to do. This is the budgetary oversight committee, not the budgetary formulation committee. That is the Minister's job. From a budgetary oversight perspective I notice that when it comes to difficult decisions, whether the carbon tax or petrol and diesel equalisation and the LPT, the Minister has failed to make a decision. He seems, however, to have nailed his colours to the mast from a general perspective. That is why I wonder about the "we" in the later part of his contribution. He says LPT has the potential to play a more significant part in our overall tax system. He has indicated a policy stance on that. The more significant part is I presume that he wants the yield to be bigger. To develop that stance further he has gestured to France where the property tax represents 2.8% of gross domestic product, GDP, and to the UK where it represents over 3% of GDP, whereas in Ireland it is at 0.6%. Why put that in unless he is indicating where he would like to see this go? That would represent very significant increases for property owners.