I thank the Deputy, who raised this issue with me just in the week before Christmas. Where it stands at the moment is that I will soon sign off the terms of reference for this report. We will procure an independent consultant to the Department to carry out this work. I expect that will all be done in the next few weeks.

I have no issue at all with making the terms of reference of the review publicly available. I will be happy to publish them. I do not want to do it at the expense of slowing down this process but there is no reason we cannot publish the terms of reference and make them available to the Deputy. The organisation will be external to the Department of Finance, as is frequently the case with assessments like this. The review will consider whether we are now making the most effective use of State money in helping those w…

The cost for 2021 was €191 million. It is the case that the total cost since the scheme was introduced in 2017 was €568 million. I agree with the Deputy regarding the essential role that public or social housing needs to play in ensuring that we have an overall housing policy capable of working more effectively. That is why more than 6,000 social or public homes will be built this year. Time and again, including earlier this evening, some Members of the Opposition, although I am not suggesting the Deputy, pick a pa…

The total cost of the temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS, and employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, was €10.26 billion. The schemes have played a role in protecting the jobs of up to 690,000 people in our country.

The Deputy is the person who opposed the use of vaccination certificates for the reopening of the hospitality sector. I say to him time and again that he was against the closure of our economy and country but that when we tried to reopen them safely, he was against that as well. He was against both. I accept that the lockdown lasted many months. The Government accepted the impact it had on the economic and mental health of those with a job and those who create jobs in our country. I would have thought it appropriat…

Deputy Tóibín is the second Deputy who has attempted to write my legacy today. I do not know what has provoked that.

Deputy Tóibín is the Deputy who voted against the legislation to safely reopen our country and our economy. He voted against it.

He consistently voted against it. I remember the debates in here vividly. The Deputy came here, voted and argued against-----

-----the use of certificates that allowed the hospitality sector to reopen. If the Deputy wants to have a debate about my legacy, I ask him to look at what is happening now with the number of employers that are opening up again. I ask him to consider how quickly the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, fell and the way in which the viability of employers was affected during a moment of the greatest challenge for our country. Indeed, I published a debt report today, which also states that our level of higher debt has…

-----our debt, as a percentage of national income, will be back to what it was before the pandemic. I thank Deputy Carroll MacNeill for raising the issue of engagement. There is constant engagement with businesses, big and small, across our country, not to mention with Deputies, such as Deputy Carroll MacNeill, in this House.

I am deeply aware of my responsibility for the additional €32 billion of national debt and understand the impact it could have in the future. I am not sure what element of that Deputy Tóibín was against. Was he against the employment wage subsidy scheme?

Was he against the pandemic unemployment payment? Was he against the additional money we put into our health services when the pandemic hit?

What element of it was the Deputy against? What element would he have done differently?

As for the closure of our economy, I fully accept that it-----

-----had an effect on so many. Yes, the level of closure that we had was higher than many but so was the number of deaths that we were successful in preventing within our country. I refer to the loss of life and the number of people we were able to help not get this disease. Those who had the disease in our country also fared fairly well. However, as I said, I know there are thousands of people in our country who do not have a loved one here with them today. I am very aware of them when we have debates like this.

The EU Commission published a proposal on the reform of VAT rates in January 2018 which would allow member states more flexibility in how they apply VAT rates. As the compromise text agreed at the meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, ECOFIN, in December has been amended significantly in comparison to the original proposal, the European Parliament will once again be consulted for its opinion. While not providing for as much flexibility as the original proposal, it still provides greater scope for m…

I am very aware of the really important role that defibrillators play in sporting and voluntary clubs all over our country. I see them in many clubs that I go into. In terms of what will happen, firstly, the European Parliament has to come back with an opinion on the decision that has been made by the finance ministers at the meeting of ECOFIN. When the Parliament comes back with that opinion, it will then be considered by ECOFIN. At that point, the final decision is made on the matter and it will then be published…

The reduced areas of flexibility refer to two new limitations that will be on member states. They are included in the third annexe of the current proposal. The first limitation will limit member states to applying a 0% rate to no more than seven value added taxable categories. The second limitation will limit member states to using a maximum of 24 categories to which a reduced rate can be applied. In other words, it will be setting a floor of no more than seven categories and a ceiling of 24 categories. The area of…

As we have debated on several occasions already, these funds and this capital are leading to the supply of more homes overall and this does have to be seen in conjunction with, for example, a very strong public housing programme. I know the Deputy wants us to build more public housing but we are going to build well in excess of 6,000 public homes this year through local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs. At the moment, these companies are taxed when the income they have is redistributed to those who inv…

As we have heard from the exchange that has just taken place, there are more homes being built in the constituency represented by Deputy Boyd Barrett. It is not for me to say that; Deputy Carroll MacNeill is more of an expert than I am in that regard. Those homes are being built. They are part of the increased number of homes that are being built in the country overall. We know more need to be built but more than 20,000 homes were delivered last year, more than 30,000 homes have been commenced and more than 35,000 …