Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

In the large print he reigned them in and then extended them. It was like saying, "Roll up, roll up property developers. You have your last six months, year, two years or three years". Mr. Regling, that very nice German man who is now, thankfully, in control of the stabilisation fund - I hope he thinks kindly of Ireland even though he was shocked by his experience - said to me after a committee meeting that he did not realise that the Irish situation in terms of tax expenditure on property was three times any other example he could find in the eurozone. He did not mop his brow but he gave a very good Germanic impression of being shocked and of never having heard the like of it before.

Let us get real. What else did the Taoiseach do? Stamp duty avoidance is covered in section 110. Developers could avoid stamp duty at a time when young couples were paying fortunes to trade up from a first property to become second time buyers and perhaps move from a three to a four bedroomed house. Developers could use pre-section 110 to avoid stamp duty, rest on contracts and various other devices. Goodbody Stockbrokers compiled a report which told the Taoiseach, the then Minister for Finance that it costed €250 million in 2005-06.

What did the Taoiseach do? Apparently a famous developer made an approach to the Department of Finance - this story has been told in several newspapers and I followed it intensely at the time - and the Taoiseach, the then Minister for Finance, introduced the section to the Finance Bill before the general election. He then had Goodbody Stockbrokers conduct a study, which was never implemented. That was giving in to vested interests by a serving Minister for Finance which was wrong.

What else did he do? I had a discussion with him in November 2006. I was the first person to mention companies such as Start Mortgages peddling sub-prime debt in the House. He told me to buzz off and that it was not a problem. People were knocking door to door in housing estates in my constituency and that of the Minister of State telling people if their debt was only €70,000 they could have a loan for €150,000 on the value of their house and could buy a car, go on a holiday, get a new kitchen and up their mortgages because they could meet the repayments. Many people who remortgaged are underwater. The Taoiseach is on the record. He would not even listen in November 2006 when it was specifically brought to attention.

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