Mr. Patrick Davitt:

I will take it first. The big thing from the point of view of agents and property owners is the widening of the tax base in respect of investment funds. It is a huge problem for private landlords at the moment in the property market. They are paying 50% and 52% tax. In some cases, it is perhaps not that rate but if they are over 60, they might well pay 4% less. It is huge thing to see a landlord paying 52% of his rental income in tax when investment funds are not paying such tax at all or anywhere near it. In fact, in most cases, they pay no tax whatsoever to the Irish economy. Why would we land ourselves in a situation such as that when we can tax these funds? These funds are earning the highest rents in our marketplace at the moment.

We hear about landlords leaving the market every day of the week. Yesterday, a daft.iereport told us how much money was the minimum value of a property to rent across the country, which I think was €1,360 or something like that. Indeed, in the past three months, that may well have been the case. However, many private landlords in the rental market are not earning €500 and €600 for their property, which is a shame. They cannot increase those rents for any reason. Then there are these multiples at the top of the market that are charging, practically for the same properties, up to €3,000 and pay no tax for this whatsoever. That is one big reason and big scenario that can be addressed to increase the tax band and increase the tax income for the Government.