Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I face a dilemma in dealing with this section because our amendment, which was more targeted, was ruled out of order. I take the point about the withholding tax, and this is something of an improvement on what we had before us on Committee Stage, but we are disallowed from doing what we really want to do, which is what we tried to do in amendment No. 46. The whole thing is unacceptable.

I did not get an answer on Committee Stage, and before this goes through it must be said, that I do not understand why the Minister is allowing tax breaks for property speculators to continue. This withholding tax is a sticking plaster that will affect some foreign investors, but the Minister is allowing the continuation, and copperfastening, of a special tax status for property speculators who, as has been very well described, are buying up Dublin. They are making incredible profits from jacking up rents and as long as they do not sell within a five-year period the property assets they buy, and as long as they hold onto them for longer than five years, they will walk away without paying any capital gains tax, and they are making massive capital gains. Property prices are going through the roof. We are allowing this and I do not understand why the Minister is doing this.

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