Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have three of the main four types, including a tax on spending, VAT and excise; taxes on transactions, which have been severely hit because stamp duty receipts are a quarter of what they were in the boom; and a tax on work, namely, income tax. The Government has joined the well-run economies by broadening the tax base for the future and introducing a property tax targeted at providing community services.

I can tell the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, with regard to the measures already introduced, including the reduction in VAT, that there is a clear benefit in encouraging spending and domestic demand for the future, and hopefully for the near future, by continuing to reduce the tax on spending and, more importantly, by lowering the cost of work through reductions in income tax. However, in a time of crisis, income tax, VAT and excise can be changed up or down as an economy or people require. A property tax is a far more difficult thing to put in place. Notwithstanding the excellent compliance of people in this country, given that 90% have signed up, and while people want to pay as little tax as possible, there is an understanding that the reduction should come through taxes on work and spending.

I congratulate the people of our country on their intelligence and patriotism in seeing that this tax is an effort to recover our economic sovereignty in the short term and, in the long term, to establish a fair and broad tax base that is fit for purpose and that can adapt to the way an economy can fluctuate at any time. I reject the Bill and I question whether the so-called socialists have really looked at the ideological position.

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