Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I object to the guillotine on Second Stage of the Finance Bill. This must be the shortest ever Second Stage debate on a Finance Bill. The election is coming and obviously the Taoiseach wishes to clear the decks in case he needs to go to the country early. However, the debate on the Finance Bill has been reduced to ridiculous proportions. The Labour Party has been allocated two time slots, one of which is for me.

The Finance Bill contains important measures which need to be debated. These include stamp duty breaks for people who give sites to their children but not for ordinary couples buying a house or indeed for first-time buyers who buy a second-hand house costing more than €317,000. There is no opportunity to debate in any detail the BES and no opportunity to take a close look at the proposals which the Minister for Finance has introduced, despite the promises of the Taoiseach last year for more tax breaks for property development——

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