Shane Ross (Independent)

It appears to me that nobody has walked the intellectual tightrope better than Senator Mansergh did this afternoon. Set the task of defending what is after all pretty well indefensible, he resorted to that great trick of attacking a speech that has not yet been made and, unlike others in the House, is not scripted, so it is difficult to anticipate, and defended a budget that has not been decided upon. I congratulate him on having done a masterly job.

He referred, as is absolutely his right, in vague, broad principles about what could be done. He went a bit further than the amendment to the motion, which I agree with Senator John Paul Phelan is pretty laughable and refuses to tackle the issue. That will be the conspicuous characteristic of those speeches we will hear from the Government benches. The Government side is at sixes and sevens on this issue. They do not know what they think about it and probably have not decided yet. As Senator Brian Hayes stated, this is a massively politicised issue at this stage.

To be fair to the Government, this is a massively complicated issue. The abolition of or reduction in stamp duty is not a simple issue. It is not easy to work out what would happen in certain circumstances. In fact, nobody knows the answer to that question. However, certain things should be acknowledged. The Fine Gael attempt to tackle this issue in an imaginative way is to be applauded. This is a complicated issue and arguments exist — which have not been made by the Government side because they are frightened of making them, as they do not know what their Minister will do next week and it would leave them flat-footed if they did — to the effect that the abolition of stamp duty would hand the amount forgone to developers.

There is also scope for a great deal of imaginative tax reform in this area which might help first-time buyers. I do not know what would be the effect of the abolition of stamp duty but let us be honest and say that, one way or the other, we are looking for a subsidy for first-time buyers. I have no problem with that. Worse people get subsidies than young people who badly need their first house. I see no point in denying this. We are saying let us take this cost away from them one way or the other without giving it to the developer. That is the honest truth of what we are asking.

The Government does not appear to have the scope or the imagination to do that at present. We are only talking about first-time buyers at this juncture. They are the most afflicted and the ones who most need to get on the property ladder. If first-time buyers are not made to pay this stamp duty, the cost to the Exchequer is only €70 million. That is a pittance. I recall Senator Mansergh previously referring to €180 million as being a pittance. We are only talking about €70 million here. That is nearly a third of what he dismissed as so little in the past.