Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----that might raise another €0.25 billion. That is a lot of money, and everybody would understand that three-year national recovery effort. It would be easy because all the systems of collection are in place for those levies. We would not have to give anybody extra powers or tell tales on anybody else; it is all in place. The only thing that is missing is telling the story, setting it out and explaining it.

Deputy Cowen will remember that there was a supplementary budget in April 2009, when the NAMA construct was introduced as a model. It was followed in July, and later on 16 September, with the details, as per the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, of what loans would go from what banks, but the idea came up in the supplementary budget of 2009.

Here is a dangerous thought. We have heard very good contributions in this debate from both sides, and there is an underlying effort to try to be fair - that is the purpose of the amendments - but after some deep thinking we should take a bigger step, within a three-year time horizon, and say-----

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