Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Far more voted for my party than Deputy Barrett's, although I accept there were many other issues. His point was, however, well articulated. As we all knocked on constituency doors we all came across stamp duty as an issue. It is not a question of looking at the issue with a narrow financial focus — I am talking about equity. Why, as would be the case in the fully developed version of the Deputy's proposal, should 2.1 million people pay for a reform for 54,000, costing €600 million to €700 million of taxpayers' money?

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