I believe I had the first slot booked.

I do not have any running order. It is fine if the Senators are happy. Senator Conway was here first but Senator Craughwell can go next.

Thank you very much, a Chathaoirligh. I thank Senator Conway and offer best wishes to our Greek colleagues, who I thank for being here. I want to use my time to address an issue that affects families across Ireland and quietly punishes them at the very moment they are dealing with loss, namely, inheritance tax. As a person who is in the departure lounge himself, my family may be looking at it in the very near future. I hope not, but they may be. The inheritance tax is meant to ensure fairness but in practice it does the opposite. It penalises ordinary families, undermines the idea of building something for the next generation and treats aspiration as something that must be taxed rather than encouraged.

Let us start with the basics. The current tax-free threshold for parent-to-child in group A is €400,000 but the threshold for siblings, nieces, nephews and grandchildren - who are in group B – is €40,000. All others, including close friends and unmarried partners, are in group C and the threshold there is €20,000. In many constituencies that are urban - and increasingly suburban – the average family home now exceeds the threshold for group A by quite a considerable amount. The result is ordinary families rather than high-net worth households are being drawn into a tax originally designed for a very different economic reason. Furthermore, the current system clearly discriminates against childless citizens. In many cases, a son or daughter inheriting a house they grew up in can face a tax bill running to tens of thousands of euro not because they are wealthy or have done anything wrong but simply because their parents owned a modest home in a county where property prices have spiralled. This is not a taxed luxury; it has become a tax on ordinary life. What messages does it send? We tell people to work hard, save, invest in their homes and build a better future for their children yet when they do exactly that, the State steps in at the worst possible moment and takes a significant portion of what they have earned with money they already paid tax on. Inheritance tax creates inequality between those who can afford professional tax planning and those who cannot. Wealthy families can structure their assets and minimise the impact but ordinary families cannot. The result is a system that claims to promote fairness but ends up reinforcing the very inequalities it was supposed to address.

We need a tax system that reflects modern Ireland’s housing market, cost of living and values. This will mean raising thresholds to realistic levels, recognising the citizen’s home as a place of memory and stability rather than a taxable asset and it means ensuring people are not punished for wanting to provide for their children and that citizens who are not married and have no children are not prevented from providing people they loved and cared for all their lives. We should have a debate on inheritance tax and specifically on why, when we have worked all our lives while paying tax do we have to pay tax when we die, or rather why do our children have to.