Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister that tax is only one of the levers, but I might give him some examples. Approximately 50% of people would like to work beyond their retirement age but most of them are denied that opportunity. Fortunately, we are not among that group. That is something that could be promoted by making flexible working more amenable for employers to deliver through tax breaks.

About 90% of people in my age category live in homes that are too large for their need, but there is no support for rightsizing. The Minister might have seen a recent column by a prominent journalist describing the difficulties in that regard.

To take another example, while we do not support family caring through the tax code, we do support paid carers, but only 1,600 cases of those reliefs are being provided for. The intention is there, but it is not getting through in a lot of these cases and there needs to be innovative thinking.

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