Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

The Minister for Finance must be somewhat relieved at the news overnight from the World Economic Forum at Davos that almost certainly there will be changes made in the coming months, particularly to Ireland's debt burden. As this section, like many others, has been included in the Finance Bill to raise revenue, maybe the incoming Government will be now able to examine a new financial environment of the debt burden on Ireland, which all of us will agree is unsustainable. It is now being suggested that the debt could be spread over not seven, but 30 years, which would relieve considerably the Irish debt burden. I hope that such will come to pass in the interests of the country. I think all of us agree the EU/IMF package, despite the best efforts of all involved to conclude a successful package, has placed an unsustainable debt burden on this country.

References have been made to the coastal resort scheme, which was, most certainly, as Senator O'Toole and others have said, introduced by Deputy Kenny in 1994. At the time that was an excellent scheme. When it became apparent that there would be a drive towards the Shannon corridor tax scheme to which Senator Leyden referred, which was initially discussed by Deputy Killeen, then Fianna Fáil spokesperson on tourism and who came to visit that corridor at the time, I spoke to several officials in the Department of Finance. I could not help but reflect that we were being watched from outside as we went through this, and I am sure people were learning a great deal. It was also proposed that the scheme was about repopulating counties such as Leitrim which had experienced a severe haemorrhage of population. The conditions imposed at that time on the tax reliefs that would be gained, particularly from the private residential sector and from the commercial sector, were quite severe. Unfortunately, I must say in the dying days of this Administration that the building lobby got behind public representatives in my party and managed to dilute the original intention, which was to repopulate those counties. They managed to dilute the restrictions in terms of who would buy the houses and the tax relief for those purchasing the houses. Moreover, because of what had happened under the coastal resorts scheme in places such as Kilkee, County Clare, where it had resulted in over-development that was referred to at the time as "bungalow blitz", the restrictions even went so far as to ensure this would not happen along the River Shannon corridor. Sadly, however, it did. I agree with Senator Leyden on one aspect with reference to Carrick-on-Shannon. The commercial tax breaks proved not only to be essential but were also the foundations for the economic regeneration of the River Shannon corridor counties and unquestionably have worked really well. However, I am afraid that one can see ghost estates in my home town of Drumshanbo. I look out my window at empty estates that have been taken over by banks because the developers involved were no longer able to sustain their interest payments. Consequently, properties such as four-bedroomed houses that were valued at €320,000 in the small town of Drumshanbo with a population of 800 in the heart of rural County Leitrim have been sold off in recent months for €140,000 and €150,000. As I believe Senator O'Toole noted, the trickle-down impact on other properties within the area has been to depress the market.

That is the background to and context for this debate on section 23. I suggest to the Minister that it is inevitable, once all Members, particularly those of us on the Fianna Fáil side who have been tainted by this spurious link with building developers-----