During the discussion this morning on the Social Democrats' vacant homes tax motion, the Minister for Finance was quite dismissive of the figure of 160,000 vacant homes identified by the census. He seemed to think that the figure included the homes of people who were on holidays for a few weeks, but this is not correct. For a vacant home to be classified as such, the census enumerator must visit it on several occasions and find that it is vacant and then must talk to the neighbours and get clarification that there is no one on holidays or some other reason for a short-term vacancy. Given that the Minister charged with implementing the vacant homes tax clearly does not understand the census data on vacancy, this raises the question as to whether the Cabinet understood the data when making its decision. Will the Government reconsider the derisory 0.3% tax and increase it to an effective rate?

We had a discussion on this at Cabinet yesterday and my understanding is that the census figure for vacant properties is 167,000 but the actual, real, likely figure for vacancies, given the fact that many people are simply away from their property when the census form comes in or do not fill it out-----

That is not the case.

I ask the Deputy to hear me out. My understanding, and the figure we were given by the Department of Finance, is that approximately 57,000 is the real figure in terms of habitable vacant properties right now. However, when looking at the different exemptions that are in place for the tax, for example, works going on, the property being up for sale or stuck in probate, and a whole range of other things, the actual number of vacant properties that are habitable - not derelict properties - and that this tax is likely to apply to is probably going to be less than 10,000. That is my honest assessment and understanding of it. If the Deputy has a different figure, I would love to see the detail on it.