Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

I raise an issue with the Minister that has gone unaddressed in this House for far too long. It is a blatant discrimination built on the taxation regime targeted squarely at citizens with no children in this country. I ask her plainly if it is acceptable for the Government to oversee, implement and defend a taxation system that discriminates against people purely based on the fact they do not have children.

Every day in Ireland, those without children are treated as second-class citizens under the capital acquisitions tax, CAT, regime specifically regarding inheritance tax. These individuals are prohibited by law from passing on the same value of their hard-earned already taxed asset to loved ones, as those with children can. Why is this? It is not because they have earned or contributed less to society but simply because they do not have children.

In budget 2025, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Chambers, increased the threshold of groups A, B and C in the inheritance tax bands, which may seem fair but the actuality is group A, the parents with children, enjoy a larger tax-free inheritance without increase while the increases remain untouched for those without children. Let us imagine if the opposite had occurred. If group A had been reduced to €40,000 and groups b and c up to €400,000, we could picture the outrage on the streets of Ireland of those parents, rightly so, because that would be deeply unfair. The hypocrisy is when childless couples and citizens face the reverse scenario, they are told to sit down, shut up and accept it and that is it and that they are less deserving and their relationships with their niece, nephew, siblings or lifelong friends simply do not count.

The Government response so far has centred around a minor threshold adjustment spread over time but that does not reform or justify this and it is certainly not equality. A structural discrimination system cannot be fixed with a few tweaks of the job here and there. Is it equitable that parents like the Minister with two children can leave up to €800,000 tax free, while people like myself with no children or single persons or people who cannot have children can leave €80,000 tax free to loved ones? That is ten times less. The system penalises the childless citizen of this country for the simple fact that they do not or perhaps cannot have children.

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