Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I wish to raise a point which the Minister might take on board. Recently I dealt with a case where a young couple in my constituency bought a site and built a house on it. They were put to the pin of their collar to do this on modest incomes. They received a significant bill for stamp duty on the site. As they did not build the house themselves because they needed to get a builder to build a house on the site, the site was subject to stamp duty. If they had claimed to have built the house themselves, it would have been exempt. In circumstances where young people who take the initiative to purchase a site and cause a house to be built, having the site liable to stamp duty is not much of an incentive.

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