Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is all I want to say on that as I do not want to be more acrimonious. There are two points to make about our current position. With Brexit we must be cautious as we live in a period of uncertainty when foreign direct investment is not a given and the rate of foreign direct investment is decelerated by the uncertainties that currently exist.

I will speak about the self-employed and their treatment at the hands of successive Governments. A self-employed person earning over €100,000 is now paying at the margin 40% tax, 4% PRSI and 11% in universal social charge, amounting to a 55% rate. People should understand what that means. If people are charging 23% VAT, it means that with every additional euro a person receives, the Government is taking 64 cent and the person ends up with 36 cent in his or her pocket. That is a very important point. I am not talking about a wealthy barrister but perhaps a person running a business who is thinking of expanding. He or she will ask the very simple question about whether to take further risk by going to a bank and borrowing money. If these people think a market exists for the service they provide and invest further, they know the State will take the most from their potential success; it will take two thirds of the extra income generated by the investment and they will be left with 34 cent, 35 cent or 36 cent in the euro.

Marginal rates matter in this regard. That applies generally but to Sinn Féin I argue that dynamism in the economy is dealt with at the margin. It is about people applying for overtime in work or somebody thinking about expanding a shop or taking on extra work or business. They make the growth change in our economy. We do not live in a static Marxist world. The incentivised side of the economy is very important.

I will echo another point mentioned by Senator Boyhan on the local property tax. If nothing changes, in two years all properties will have to be revalued. I will put on the record a point I made recently in a newspaper article. For a sum of €400,000 or €500,000, within the purview of the first-time purchasers' assistance package announced today, one would get something very small and nothing grand in south Dublin, Dún Laoghaire and north Dublin. For the same amount, on www.myhome.ierecently I noticed a 3,500 sq. ft. luxurious restored Victorian mansion on five acres in County Laois.The family in a €500,000 house in Dublin may have a mortgage of 80% or, in some cases if they were unfortunate enough to borrow at the wrong time, a mortgage of 100%. The family living in the mansion down in Laois may have no mortgage at all. One family may be a lot wealthier than the other and my point is that many people are walking towards a financial cliff. They are not wealthy people but are pensioners and the like who are living in houses that they do not want to sell or get out of in Senator Boyhan's neck of the woods in Dún Laoghaire. They are not the wealthy class. They are not the people who are living in 3,000 sq. ft. houses on five acres in County Laois. These are ordinary people who are facing a financial cliff. All I am saying is that the alarm bells are now ringing for them. Unless the local property tax is reformed, there will be a very serious attack on their well being and their capacity to support themselves and to live a reasonably frugal existence.