The funding of local authorities is a matter for the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The Finance (No. 2) Bill legislates in respect of fiscal matters only, such as taxation. That said, there already exists provision for budgeting at the level of local authorities via the LPT, which facilitates the responsiveness of taxation policy to geographic-specific contexts. The LPT is an essential source of funding f…

I thank the Acting Chairperson and join him in extending a warm welcome to all of our guests from Oranmore Men's Shed who are with Deputy Grealish. I hope they enjoy their visit to the Oireachtas and thank them for coming. I am pleased to be here to discuss the Finance (No. 2) Bill 2023, which will give the necessary legal basis to the decisions announced in the budget and make a number of other necessary changes to tax legislation. I understand Senators have been provided with an updated summary of the Bill which …

The NTMA has advised that its annual report for 2022 discloses ISIF’s shareholdings and contains, as at year end 2022, 11 companies which appear on the UN Human Rights Council database of business enterprises involved in certain activities related to the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as published by the UN Human Rights Council in February 2020 and updated in June 2023. The NTMA has advised me that ISIF constructs its portfolio within the legislative framework set for it by the Oireacht…

The reply the Deputy will receive sets out a table drawn from the NTMA annual report. It gives a total over just under €4.2 million. My Department has been working with ISIF on the most appropriate way to address issues raised by the Deputy and the Private Members' Bill, including in the context of the forthcoming future Ireland fund and the infrastructure, climate and nature fund. I have also written to the CEO of the NTMA and to the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence to seek their view…

It is important we take a comprehensive approach to examining this issue. The UN acknowledged that the list it published was not complete or exhaustive. ISIF's policies in respect of environmental, social, and corporate governance, ESG, have demonstrated an ability to invest ethically. For example, under the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act 2018, at the end of last year, the fund had developed a list of 243 fossil fuel companies in which it will not invest. In addition, the fund also maintains an exclusionary strategy ar…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He should note that vehicle registration tax is an emissions-based tax calculated on the value of the car. There is no specific VRT rate for cars with this type of technology. Under the Finance Act 1992, VRT is assessed on a vehicle at the time of registration in the State and the way it is calculated depends on the category of the vehicle involved. VRT on category A vehicles, generally passenger cars and certain special utility vehicles, is based on the vehicle’s value an…

I thank the Deputy. The TY students are very welcome. I hope they enjoy their visit to Leinster House. To answer the question directly, we are open to examining what changes might be appropriate to the VRT system in a way that helps all our collective efforts to reduce accidents on our roads and the level of fatalities, which have unfortunately been going in the wrong direction in recent times. It behoves all of us to be open-minded in examining what we can do by using new technology to reduce the risk of accidents…

We have seen far too many tragedies on Irish roads in recent months. There is not a household in the country that has not been impacted in terms of at least knowing somebody who has lost their life or who has been subjected to horrific injuries as a result of a road traffic accident. I have seen far too many of them in my community. I assure the Deputy that any policy that helps reduce the risk and leads to reduced accidents and fewer fatalities on our roads is one I will support. The system of taxation we employ f…

I am sure there is. I am happy to work with the Deputy on his specific proposal.

Landlords are an essential feature of a functioning housing market. Rising rents are driven by a shortage of supply so stabilising and increasing the supply of rental properties should ease upward pressure on rental prices and make it easier for prospective tenants to find affordable homes. The new residential premises rental income relief is a tax relief at the standard rate of 20% against private rented residential income. The purpose of this relief is to provide an incentive for landlords, specifically targeted …

I think we can agree that we are witnessing the departure of a significant number of small-scale landlords from the Irish market. We need to have a functioning private rental market providing homes for individuals and families on an ongoing basis. When I look at the data, I can see the number of notices of termination that have been served. Over 24,000 were served from the third quarter of last year to the third quarter of this year and in the majority of instances the reason cited for the serving of the notice of …

We discussed that issue in detail on Committee Stage of the Finance Bill and I gave a commitment that the officials in my Department would examine it in the context of the TSG papers. On the issue of the supply of homes, we need to have a functioning private rental sector. We are providing approximately €5 billion of capital to build more homes, including public homes, cost-rental homes and affordable purchase homes, and the private sector is adding perhaps another €10 billion to that to build private housing in ou…

The scheme was introduced in 2017 with the purpose of assisting first-time buyers with the deposit required to purchase or self-build a new house or apartment to live in as their home. The relief is only available in respect of new builds, with a view to increasing the supply of new housing and stimulating demand. To date, the scheme has been a significant support for first-time buyers of new homes. As of 1 November 2023, some 42,885 first-time buyers, either singly or as part of a couple, had benefited from the sc…

I felt in the lead-up to the budget that providing certainty that the help-to-buy scheme would continue beyond 2024 for a further year to the end of 2025 was important for prospective homebuyers and would help stimulate supply, as builders and developers would know for sure the scheme would be there to support prospective house purchasers for the period in question. I believe that was the right policy decision. I also indicated in my budget day speech that, across next year, I will consider whether changes are warr…

In the format in which we are operating, it is only possible for any of us to quote certain extracts from the report. The report is published and speaks for itself. The Government has considered it. In relation to phasing out the scheme, the House has just legislated for the extension of the scheme to the end of 2025, so that is the Government’s policy. For much of our history, we have had various schemes to help people buy their first home. I remember well in my parents' time there was a scheme whereby people will…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 83 and 121 together. In its autumn forecasts released earlier this month, the European Commission projected Irish GDP to decline by 0.9% this year and to grow by 3% next year. This represents a downward revision from forecasts published in May, amid developments in the multinational-dominated sectors and normalising domestic demand. This negative GDP projection is consistent with weakness seen in the data over the last month, primarily relating to the activities of multinational cor…

I thank both Deputies for their contributions. I will start with Deputy Doherty's questions. We are in a period of lower growth and we are forecasting broadly 2% growth in the domestic economy for next year, which is in line with what the Commission has forecast. When we compare last year's outturn, both in modified domestic demand and GDP which was almost 10%, we will feel the effects of lower growth. It is primarily because of the external environment. Monetary policy is certainly having an impact. Political inst…

It is all local. I assure the Deputy that the Government will continue to maintain a high level of public capital investment. It will be more than €13 billion next year. I hope, with the support of the House, we will have the new infrastructure, climate and nature fund which will help to ensure that over the years ahead, come what may economically, we will be able to sustain a high level of public capital investment. I look forward to continuing to work with the Deputy on a number of those very important public pro…

My assessment is that the labour market will continue to be tight. We will experience some softening over the period ahead but we remain confident in the outlook overall. We stand by the projections we made on the fiscal side and the macroeconomic side in the budget just a few short weeks ago. The next opportunity to update those projections will be in the stability programme update which will be published next April. I will not deny that the external environment has deteriorated. As a small, open economy, that has…

As part of budget 2024, I introduced a personal income tax package to the value of €1.3 billion in 2024 and €1.5 billion in a full year. The tax package is built around three key pillars. These are changes to tax credits, the standard rate band and USC. The Government has sought to use each of these levers to spread the benefit of the available package as effectively as possible. With regard to income tax, the main tax credits, which are personal, PAYE and earned income tax credits, will be increased by €100 to €1,…