Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, as always.

My ever-active research assistant took out the document issued by the IMF today at 5.10 p.m. In contains material in which we state we are introducing the tax on 1 July 2013 and that it will be collected centrally by the Revenue Commissioners and constitute an important and stable source of revenue. It will not be stable. Ireland and Spain illustrate this very well. If we had been collecting this tax five years ago, would the revenue be down by approximately 60%? The Department of Finance should get the house price market right when talking to the IMF so it will not print this kind of stuff in its reports.

On reading the report the IMF produced in September 2012, entitled "Ireland: Selected Issues", I noted an important finding in Table 1. Ireland is now a high-tax country.