Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

Senator O'Meara asked a good question. I was trying to create a balance between what I thought I could obtain fairly from the market and what I could deliver into the housing funds. I chose the house value figure of €270,000 because I did not want to disadvantage people in the Dublin area, where house prices are higher than the rest of the country. I took the average price of a house in Dublin, which is approximately €266,000 and rounded it up to €270,000. I thought a 0.5% levy on houses valued less than €270,000 was reasonable in that I surmised I could get that from the market.