Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

Let me finish. Please, stop interrupting. I did not interrupt the Minister once. He says this is about ownership of apartments. Some 96% of apartments built in this city do not actually come on the market. They are rented out at astronomical prices. The Minister makes a virtue of the fact that he forgot about the fact there is forward funding arrangements for apartments. The Government rushed through an amendment last night as if this was what it was all about. This was all about developers. Does the Minister know what operational profits were generated by the two biggest developers in this State last year? If he does, I will give way to him. Their operational profits were 20% and 21%. That is the type of profits that were generated. We see reports from Britain which talk about how developers are land hoarding, deciding where and when to build and using their market dominance to squeeze new measures out of governments, and that is what has happened.

The Minister is the person who campaigned to abolish the USC. He is the person who gave a commitment that he would reduce people's tax every single year over the next five years in the election. He lied to the public. That is what happened because this Finance Bill does not provide that commitment. What he should be doing is making sure people have relief during a cost-of-living crisis but he has decided to prioritise developers, investors and the profits of big companies over ordinary people. That is wrong, and I am calling him out on it.

See this speech in context