Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I listened with interest to the Minister's points and understand why, as Minister for Finance, he argues his point regarding taxes forgone and the cost of Fine Gael-Labour proposals in the area. With respect, he is looking at the issue from a narrow point of view and ignores important facts. The increases in the cost of housing for young people and people who find it necessary to trade up because of an increase in family size have led to significant personal indebtedness.

It is very easy not to do anything about stamp duty and just tag it on as another part of the costs of a house. However, the result, as we have seen over recent years, is that personal indebtedness increases enormously. When the Minister argues about the loss of revenue he ignores what is happening on the other side. If my personal debt goes up I will look for an increase in salary or wages and that has a knock-on effect on the overall performance of the economy. Two people in a household will have to work outside the home to cover the repayments and the cost of child care. Recent budgets have endeavoured to deal with child care costs.

It is foolish to ignore the cost of housing. Dublin Deputies can confirm the accuracy of what I say. My son's end-of-terrace, three-bedroom house in Stepaside cost €420,000 off the plans. Ten months later, phase two of the development came onto the market at €525,000 for a mid-terrace house. That is an increase of €105,000 within ten months. If one has the income one can borrow 110% but one is borrowing to pay the stamp duty. That drives up demand for higher wages to meet repayments and to justify the loan one must take out to purchase the house.

If the Minister argues narrowly about forgoing the income from stamp duty taxes he is correct. He is, however, ignoring the other costs involved by not doing something about them. There is a shortage of property for people who want, or are forced because of the sizes of their families, to trade up. I was brought up in a three-bedroom local authority house, 45 St. Begnet's Villas, Dalkey. Does the Minister know that those houses were sold for almost €1 million each? That was because of the shortage of housing in my constituency. The Minister can ignore the stamp duty element of that and say that he cannot afford to forgo the taxes but he should consider the demand that will arise for higher salaries to justify the repayments for a three-bedroom house. The Government is not taking that into account in this debate. It is foolish to ignore relief for people trading up or down. This will come back to haunt us.

The cost of housing is changing Irish society every day. People pay high child care costs because they have large mortgages on three-bedroom houses. There is no choice for couples who have children but for both partners to work. That is not the type of society I want. If two people want to work and pay for child care, that is their concern.

A question tabled for today seeks a professional meals-on-wheels service. The knock-on effect of the changes in society is that services that were provided on a voluntary basis must now be paid for. Housing estates are empty during the day and there is nobody to deliver meals. In any part of Dublin I know people in their 70s and 80s deliver meals on wheels to other people their own age who are less healthy than them. Estates are empty and that is not people's choice — they are being forced into it. Any costs implicit in increasing personal indebtedness and driving up salaries and wages will cause huge problems in the future, including social problems, which are the most important aspect. From that perspective, we should do anything we can to keep the price of housing down and reduce the costs for young people and those having to trade up.

My final point relates to the proposed commission on taxation. I have no problem bringing in people to give advice on different types of taxes but any decisions on taxation should be taken in the Houses of the Oireachtas. I do not want outside people telling me we should have this or that tax — we should be able to make such decisions ourselves as the elected representatives. We should by all means seek advice but far too much is being done outside these Chambers. I hope any decisions taken will be properly debated in this House so that we do not wake up one morning and find that some agreement has been entered into with outside bodies without our having had the opportunity to debate the issues.

I am more interested in the type of society we will end up with. I cannot speak with authority for rural Ireland but have considerable experience in the cities, which I have represented for a number of years. What is happening is frightening and we should do anything we can to help people get a decent home for themselves with a reasonable mortgage. The argument should not solely focus on the loss of revenue from changes to stamp duty but should look at the subject in a broader context. That is what the Fine Gael and Labour Party proposals in the last election attempted to do.

I took part in a similar debate on radio with the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, recently and I will make my point again. With the greatest respect to the two Ministers sitting opposite, 41% of people voted for their proposals and 59% against. They should not forget that. They cannot say their proposals for stamp duty received a mandate from the people as they did not. The Government is entitled, if it has the numbers, to vote through whatever policies it wishes but it did not win the argument at the election as 59% of the people disagreed with its proposals, while 41% agreed.

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