Mr. Pat Farrell:

To be very clear, we said at the outset that we welcome the concept of an LVS Bill. We welcome the concept of taking some of the uplift from the betterment of the land and making sure that is invested directly to deliver the infrastructure that is required to deliver the housing units. I just wanted to put that on the record and restate it again. That said, there is an issue with the way the Bill is constructed, the retrospective aspect to it and the fact it does not have an offset for all the other levies that have already been brought in, which makes it one of the highest tax takes in Europe from the State's perspective in terms of housing. That is a documented fact; it is not disputable. That is a major problem and that will add further to the viability challenges that are already well documented.

The other issue is that if, for example, there was some proposal for a new tax on the housing market in the morning, the housing market would freeze because no one would move to make a transaction. They would be asking what the implication is, how it will affect the price and whether prices will fall or go up. We are talking about the same thing here with this. We are saying it should be phased and we are also saying it should not be retrospective. I might pass over at this stage because-----