Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Under-occupancy of homes in Dublin must be addressed. We need to find ways to incentivise people who are living in large homes which they no longer need to trade down and free up the house for a family or a number of people to live in. Thus we could use the property we have in Dublin and our urban regions in the most efficient way. While I understand the Minister of State's points regarding LPT, I will not speak on them because I was not thinking of this area. The significance of a full CGT exemption for a person aged over 65 trading down a house in Dublin would be enormous, representing one third of the sale price. The money could be of real benefit to such a person in terms of his or her pension and securing a certain standard of living for the future, as well as the other benefits of downsizing, such as lower utility costs.

The Minister of State referred to acquisitions tax. Perhaps the Department of Finance could embark upon a bigger piece of work in examining some of our taxes and their thresholds and entry points. In view of the supply issues in Dublin and the spike in property prices, parents are passing away while living in a home and their children are having to sell the home because they cannot afford to pay the capital acquisitions tax on it. That is not right, given that they might be renting and want to move into the homes. It is an unnecessary and unfair pressure, given the time at which the tax is levied, which affects people in all parts of Dublin because of the threshold entry point. The last review of our taxation system was done in 2009. I have read parts of it and spoken to people who were involved in the process. It was written in order to come up with certain results and conclusions. Now that we are moving to a sustainable taxation model for the economy and we have broadened tax base, there is a good opportunity to reconsider what are appropriate taxes and entry points and, if there are exemptions, what they are and to whom they should apply.

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