Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with my colleague Senator Mooney about IBEC and the US Chamber of Commerce. My message to IBEC is clear. We are spending €260 million a week in health care in this country. That budget will continue to increase because of the requirement for us to deal with the issues that arise as a result of people smoking. If they want to increase taxation, let them come out and state that they are in agreement with the raising of taxation on the business sector to pay for our abandonment of the plain packaging policy for cigarettes. We have taken the correct decision on this, and if we must face court challenges on it, let us do so. IBEC should not be putting out a view that is not in the best interests of Irish people.

I refer to the issue of taxation on land which is lying idle and which has infrastructure. It is fine to talk about taxation, but one of our biggest current problems in the housing market is the lack of finance for the building sector. There is a significant problem.I had experience of it when acting for someone. We looked to the banks for finance, but they told us that they were unprepared to entertain anything involving the building industry. We can apply all of the taxation we like on land that is lying idle, but until finance is made available to the industry to start the process of building so that we might meet our housing targets each year, we will go nowhere. We should start to examine this issue and hold a debate on determining the best way forward. We will address social housing, but we must also consider how to finance the building of houses in the private sector.