Mr. Tom O'Brien:

Irrespective, there has been no hard solutions in terms of what rate of tax those funds would pay, how it would work or an impact assessment on supply; none of that has happened.

Another thing that was noticeable in the report was that the commission seems to be fairly firmly of the view that capital allowances as a measure of incentivising housing supply or directing housing policy have no part to play but it does not really state why that is the case. There are no facts behind the argument as to why capital allowances have not worked. There are hundreds and thousands of apartments in all our major cities - Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Galway - that would not exist if capital allowances had not been in play. Capital allowances are much maligned. It is easy to be populist in one's view of capital allowances and to say they do not serve a purpose, but the housing situation in all our major cities would be so much worse if we did not have capital allowances. I was disappointed to see them just roundly rejected as a useful tool in taxation policy in the commission documents while the matter of REITs and institutional funds was kicked off to a review group. Some of the other measures in the report are fairly radical. I would not have thought the introduction of a flat rate of tax on the funds was that radical in the context of other measures that has been raised.

The other thing I will say about broadening the tax base is that any proposals have to be credible. Unfortunately, a lot of the discourse and the regulations that have been introduced in the housing sector, in particular, rent control, and a lot of the examples that are often used to ground the argument for a particular policy are such that all the most favourable legislation in other countries is picked and brought into one piece of legislation, while the not-so-favourable legislation is ignored. I could be open to correction on this - it is not a major plank of my argument - but the site valuation tax argument in the commission document is based on an example from, I think, Estonia. I think that is the country that has been picked as the benchmark for the site value methodology. I do not know why the UK, Germany or other countries were not looked at. If policy and recommendations are to come in, they have to be credible, and picking Estonia as the example for our site value tax lacks credibility.

The last thing I will say is on capital acquisitions tax and capital gains tax. We have a housing crisis. Deputy Farrell's party has been very much to the fore in this regard. It tabled a motion in the Dáil last night calling for the housing crisis to be declared emergency. We have a housing crisis, and I accept that. Why is it, then, that proposals are coming forward in the tax commission paper that will lead to more properties being sold and fewer properties being bought because the capital tax measures in the commission document are so anti-property owner and so anti-anybody who has assets? It seems that all the measures are based on one overriding and overarching policy, which is tax equity. The main argument put forward for increasing tax on inheritance and CGT on death seems to be that some people get inheritances and some people do not and that if you do not get an inheritance, you are entitled to get a share of somebody else's inheritance by virtue of a transfer of tax from a beneficiary to somebody who does not get a gift. The Deputy looks confused, but if she reads the very early stages of the inheritance tax proposals, she will see that that is the argument.