Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

We are witnessing a deathbed conversion by the Government on the question of tax versus property reliefs and a belated admission that the latter are unsustainable. The exemption threshold for stamp duty is set at €127,000, a modest price to pay for a house even in today's deflated market. Why was consideration not given to introducing a baseline threshold of 1% on house purchases? A threshold creates circumstances in which people become fearful of exceeding the sum in question and inhibits prices from exceeding a certain level.

I would like to hear what consideration was given to introducing a 1% tax on the first euro spent on the purchase of a house.

Another issue mentioned by Deputy Hayes and other speakers was negative equity which, according to figures, will generate an estimated income of €36 million next year. I am not sure how that figure was arrived at given that the market is not active in any way and when there are people are in negative equity the chances of second-hand home sales taking place next year will be very low. A particular concern is repossession whereby a person's home is sold against his or her will. Will the 1% tax apply? Will the person be taken to the High Court, have the home repossessed and when banking and legal fees are cleared remain in negative equity after the sale with a tax to pay as an additional penalty?

The language used by the Minister today is very worrying. He spoke about stimulating the property market. This was the type of language that got us into the difficulty in the first instance. The situation was that investment property was favoured over residential home occupation. I am very concerned to hear this sort of language being reintroduced. What we need to see in the housing market is normalisation whereby residential ownership is preferred over investment development. Key to that, although it seemed to be secondary in the Minister's presentation, is the issue of a house price register data base. That appears to be an aside to the taxation model after which, when the taxation measures are put in place, we will consider having a house price register data base. We should have heard about such a data base tonight because it is a key issue and an immediate priority. It would provide the sort of normalisation that would bring back confidence to the housing market.

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