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

I am mystified by the Minister of State's response. That percentage has definitely dramatically increased if we consider how these types of entities have come in. In the overall landlord sector, the number might be relatively small.

That IRES REIT is the largest landlord in the country and is still buying up property loans and properties gives an indication of where the situation is heading. It was a deliberate policy.

This is analogous to the double Irish and the intangible assets debate in that windows were opened. The Minister of State mentioned that the Government changed the law in 2016, and it was around that time that the intangible assets measure reverted to 80%. A specific window was deliberately opened up for these people in terms of intangible assets and property. It is in that window that we have this enormous scandal of a large amount of tax and of NAMA and the banks unloading vast amounts of property, building land and loans related to those. I do not buy the argument that it cannot be quantified because behavioural changes might have occurred had we done things differently. That could be said about any tax. At the same time, the Government is well able to give figures on revenue forgone under other tax heads. The Government does not want to give us this figure because it is a staggeringly high one. If it came out, people would be scandalised by it. The idea that the Government cannot even give us an estimate of how much tax would be forgone if these entities paid normal levels of tax on this kind of activity stretches credibility.

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