Michael McDowell (Independent)

I am glad I am being productive. My fourth point then is this, and it may surprise some people. The time has come to deal comprehensively with non-doms in Ireland. It is not right or fair that factory workers pay fairly hefty tax rates but other people can just skip off to Malta, Portugal or wherever else and pay no tax to the State on their income. Believe it or not, when the Progressive Democrats were in office, Mary Harney and I came to the Government with a proposal for a minimum tax rate to apply to all Irish citizens regardless of where they were. I suggest it would be fair, or the Government should at least consider, a 20% tax rate for non-doms who are Irish citizens, have been Irish taxpayers, have assets and income-earning assets in Ireland, and cannot prove they are giving that amount of money up to any other country anywhere in the world. I do not believe in a society or a world order in which the super-rich can escape all taxation and come back to Ireland and start lecturing us on how we should run this country. It is fascinating that people who opt out of our economy in terms of paying anything into it can just flit off abroad and then come back for their 180 days of the year and give us lectures about what the rest of us should be doing with the State. It is an extraordinary thing. It would be so simple. By the way, the British are going to eventually deal with non-doms and the WTO world order is changing. The super-rich, whether they are in America, Portugal, Malta or wherever else, expect somehow that they have the right to own assets and employ people who pay huge taxation, at 20% and 40%, along with PRSI and USC, but they do not owe a cent to the country that has made them wealthy. I do not accept that at all.

The last point I want to make, the fifth or the sixth point or whatever it is, is this. There is provision in the legislation in respect of rent and allowances and the like, as Senator Joe O’Reilly said. The big problem is that the private rental sector is collapsing and the measures that will take effect in March are driving people out of the sector. Landlords are selling up. I know that because one person with whom I have a close economic relationship has been served with an eviction notice twice in the last 18 months by landlords who say – and it is the only way out of it – that they intend to give the property to a family member or put it up for sale. If the Government does not tackle that, it is going to have a major crisis on its hands. There is no point in the Department of Finance fiddling around with rent allowances and the like if people are being evicted as a result of what is being laid down as the law in the Custom House.