Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to go down the Donald Trump path of saying it is or it is not. This is the largest health budget ever. For people to say that it is not is dishonest.

I have a real concern about housing and the local authorities. I think it was Senator O'Sullivan who referred to the local authorities. I was on a local authority in 2007. Every director of service who was there has since retired and the corporate knowledge has retired. I do not know if the local authorities are capable of building large quantities of social housing. That is a personal view. I am not saying it is correct. However, I have a real concern about it.

On the €750 million, I am speaking to countless builders - small builders of 20 units or 50 units - who cannot get funding. The €750 million from the ISIF fund that is to be made available via NAMA for small builders is twice as much money as AIB and Bank of Ireland made available to builders, big or small, in Ireland. That is the scope of the potential impact.

Senator John O'Mahony referred to the sports capital programme. We expect it to be done within a month.

Senator Nash said the tax cuts were not worth the price of a cup of coffee.

Wealth taxes were touched on. We have wealth taxes in this State. By a country mile the maximum wealth in the State is in property and it is multiple times the value of shares, equities and cash. Property is where wealth is held in this State. It is a peculiar thing that we do in Ireland. We hold practically all of our wealth in property. There are wealth taxes. Adding up capital gains tax, capital acquisitions tax and local property tax makes €1.8 billion. The stamp duty will be €1.6 billion in 2018. Added up, that is €3.4 billion. Those are the wealth taxes we collect in Ireland but people say that there are no wealth taxes. To put it in context, it is behind the four main heads of income tax, VAT, customs and excise, and corporation tax, but it is not that much behind where corporation tax was a couple of years ago.

The Chairman should not worry. I will keep going. I am doing the best I can.