I briefly want to speak in support of this amendment. As the Minister knows, Irish start-ups receive a huge amount of support through Enterprise Ireland and through mentoring. A massive number of the founders of Irish start-ups put up a massive amount of their heart and soul into building up an enterprise, company or business. There are huge success stories from that. Then what happens is they get to a certain scale after maybe 20 years of doing that and it is no longer sustainable for the person who founded it to do it. They want succession and who is knocking on their door but these international private equity firms. When they are sold to the private equity firms, which is usually what happens, there are different outcomes but sometimes it is an asset stripping or a market charge stripping. The long-term planning and sustainable planning that went into that start-up from the founders is sometimes thrown out the window. We do not necessarily get the value from that mentoring support in subsequent years. It is a real economic loss to do the job so well as a country in terms of supports to the founder and to get us to that point for an awful lot of that to be eroded. Different companies go different ways but that is what can happen. What this does in terms of where it has happened and the one recent example in Ireland is that it leads to substantial increases in terms of productivity because the people who are working in the place are extra invested. They own it. In terms of problem solving, you hear from different businesses that problems they have not been able to solve for a number of years are solved because there is extra buy-in from the employees who now own the company. You get that extra buy-in and resourcefulness in terms of solving problems and productivity. That is a win-win for everyone. It is good for the economy as well. I think this makes sense in terms of promoting better workplace democracy and it is better for employees. It helps to retain skills and it is better for the economy as well. We have an issue, as the Minister knows, in terms of productivity in our economy. We have some strong sections of our economy in terms of productivity but some weaker sections as well. Anything that is going to drive up productivity and make a better workplace for the people working in it is to be welcomed and supported.

Sentiment score: 0.28

I wish to speak in general support of the amendment. This is a dire situation families are in due to a lack of regulation and oversight. There is nothing more traumatic than for people to see their homes crumbling in front of them and to go through all this stress over years. They need somewhere to live when these works are taking place and their houses are being demolished and rebuilt and I do not hear from the Tánaiste what the Government's solution is. If the Government is not supporting the amendments, what is the solution? What is it going to do about this? This has to be tackled. People need a place to live in when they have to move out of their home.

Sentiment score: 0.04

I welcome that the Tánaiste has brought forward this amendment. I ask for a couple of clarifications. First, why has it taken this long for Russia to be taken off the list? Why did it remain on it in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, given the invasion of Ukraine started in 2022 and there have been brutal attacks on civilian populations there? Second, does the amendment the Tánaiste has brought forward mean people will still be able to claim the relief until the end of this year? Why is 2025 included for claims? I acknowledge that he said the latest data show no claims were made by Russia, but why make provision for people to be able to claim this tax relief this year, given that sanctions have been in place for several years? What is the logic for doing that and how does the Tánaiste justify doing it?

Sentiment score: 0.09

I move amendment No. 24: In page 64, between lines 4 and 5, to insert the following: “Report on tax expenditures for property developers 42. The Minister shall, within 3 months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on the fiscal and housing-market effects of tax reliefs and incentives available to property developers, and on alternative approaches to achieving housing-supply objectives without such tax expenditures.”. The situation with tax expenditure for property developers is that profits in Glenveagh more than doubled in the last year. The CEO of Glenveagh properties saw his salary increase by 80% in 2024 to a whopping €2.7 million. At the same time we see people struggling with the cost of living and more than 5,000 homeless children, yet the prioritisation here is tax expenditure that boosts the profits of developers. The wrong choices are being made here and the wrong priorities. Tá na tosaíochtaí míchearta ag an Rialtas. We need to have a review of all the tax expenditure. We have had multiple tax expenditures for developers over the years and it is clear they are not working. We are seeing profits increase, house prices and rents increase, and homelessness increase. While these measures are very costly, it would be much better to invest the money directly in more affordable housing rather than measures that boost profits for developers who already have very high profits. The fact that profit levels in the two publicly listed companies are 20% and 21% and that we see growing tax expenditures that will boost those profits further is completely unjustifiable. The former Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, when pressed on this in the committee, said that further tax expenditure in terms of VAT reduction would lead to an increase in further profits for developers. He was very upfront about that, and that it would not lead to more affordable housing. He said that the way he was going to boost viability was by increasing profits for developers even further, when we know the profits are already at very high levels - 20% and 21%. The problem with a lot of these tax expenditures as well is that they are not connected with affordability conditions. They are not tied in with making housing more affordable. That is why this review is needed urgently. As the Tánaiste knows, a huge amount has been invested by the Government in housing, through a range of measures, including tax expenditures, but it is clearly not working and we are not getting the value for money that is needed. We are taking an approach that is way out of kilter with other European countries in terms of putting so much into tax expenditures. Most other European countries that are more successful in providing more affordable housing use the money much more directly to help build affordable homes rather than by having indirect tax expenditure measures. As I am sure the Tánaiste knows, tax expenditure measures should be targeted and very carefully used. When they are too wide, and they go on for too long in any sector, there is a huge amount of deadweight and waste. That applies in the housing sector the same as any other sector. That is simply considered to be, in terms of good governance, a good use of resources. They are considered to be the basics. A very wide approach is being taken by the Government in its approach on housing and tax expenditures. I understand that there is a need for action in this area, but the resources are not being used well. I recently mentioned to the Tánaiste what the spending review from the Department of public expenditure said about these approaches. It said the tax breaks are priced into what developers bid for land, thereby increasing bidding rates and displacing any savings in costs achieved elsewhere. The reviews done by the Department of public expenditure and reform should be taken seriously by the Government. That is its Department giving it advice about how best to use public resources in this area, and for some reason it is not being taken on board in terms of this measure. The fact that those kind of spending reviews have not been taking place in the last few years is highly problematic as well. Detailed spending reviews used to be carried out by the Department of public expenditure and reform and then published, but that practice stopped in recent years. That needs to be addressed as well. As I said already to the Tánaiste in recent days, we have a situation where profits are up, subsidies are up, tax expenditures are up and productivity in the sector is going down, as is the investment in productivity year after year. That is not right and it does not make sense. That should be ringing alarm bells for the Minister in terms of his approach not being the correct one. If that was happening in another sector, he would rightly point it out as being the wrong approach. I urge him to accept this amendment.

Sentiment score: 0.17

On the spending reviews that have been stopped, we need to do something to fix that because those reviews are important in terms of value for money. I understand there is work going on, but that the results of that work are not being published to the same level as previously. As a result, we are not seeing the benefit of that analysis publicly. Of the 90,000 planning permissions that are not being built out, more than 40,000 are in Dublin. The latter mainly relate to apartments. The one thing that has worked in the context of getting movement on apartment planning permissions that have been there for years but that have not been acted upon does not relate to the different tax expenditures. Where that has worked - it can be seen in large-scale developments like Clongriffin, where apartment planning permissions were not getting built out for years - is where the LDA has come in and built out planning permissions quite fast, incidentally. These are developments which have stalled for well over a decade or almost two decades. They are being built out now quite fast by the LDA. We can debate the affordability of those apartments, but they are certainly somewhat affordable. They are below the full market price. That is working. The money that is going into that is working, whereas there is no evidence that any of the money that is going into the various different tax expenditures is delivering. Not only is what the LDA is doing delivering in terms of build-out, but, as I said, there is an affordability element as well. That is worth thinking about. That is why this review is needed urgently, namely within three months. If the Tánaiste was in a position to state that the Department is doing the spending reviews and the proper analysis that it used to do and publishing the results, he would have a case not to accept the amendment. However, that is not happening.

Sentiment score: 0.05

I thank the Ceann Comhairle.

Sentiment score: 0.36

It is my amendment.

Sentiment score: 0.00

I welcome what the Tánaiste said about spending reviews. On the profits, profit levels are 20% and 21%. The Minister's predecessor is on record saying that this will increase viability and output, and increase profits. That is what we were told in Committee. How high does he think the profits have to go? Profit levels of 20% and 21% are double what they were in the previous year for one of those companies. How much higher do they need to go to make this viable? Does the Minister accept that these measures will increase profits even further? Of course when the private sector is involved in construction, it is going to have to have a profit level, but 20% and 21% does not need additional tax relief.

Sentiment score: 0.48