It is a recipe for fewer homes.

Higher rents and fewer homes.

Fewer homes and higher rents, Deputy Doherty.

Deputy Doherty does not like a debate.

The special assignee relief programme, SARP, is designed to help reduce the cost for employers of assigning skilled individuals in their companies from abroad to take up positions in Irish-based operations of their employer or an associated company, thereby facilitating the creation of jobs and the development and expansion of businesses in Ireland. The scheme currently has a sunset date of 31 December 2022. As I stated on Committee Stage, there is an essential context around SARP. The context is that it is part of…

The people I represent and the people who I want to have better public services, to have a good standard of living, who want their children to go to good schools and who I want to see living in good homes and having a better future in our country are the butcher, the street cleaner and the teacher, the people that the Deputies, in different ways, have referred to in their contributions. In order to ensure we have the resources and money we need to deliver for the needs they have and that I want to see met, a small …

The Deputy is happy to see the jobs go elsewhere.

I am giving the Deputy the truth.

The Deputy should respond to my argument.

I move: That leave be given by the Dáil to introduce the following Supplementary Estimates for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2021: Vote 12 — Superannuation and Retired Allowances ( Supplementary Estimate ). Vote 17 — Public Appointments Service ( Supplementary Estimate ). Vote 32 — Enterprise, Trade and Employment ( Supplementary Estimate ).

I move: That, subject to leave being given to introduce the following Supplementary Estimates for the service of the year ending on 31st December, 2021, the Supplementary Estimates be referred to the following Select Committees, as appropriate, pursuant to Standing Orders 95(3)( b ) and 215(3), which shall report back to the Dáil by no later than 16th December, 2021:— Vote 12 — Superannuation and Retired Allowances ( Supplementary Estimate ) — Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseac…

I move the following Resolutions: THAT Chapters 1, 2 and 2A of Part 30 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 (No. 39 of 1997), which relate to occupational pension schemes, retirement annuities and personal retirement savings accounts, be amended in the manner and to the extent specified in the Act giving effect to this Resolution, to provide for the removal of the Approved Minimum Retirement Fund requirement for individuals availing of the Approved Retirement Fund option on retirement and the transfer of current App…

My apologies to the House for keeping Members waiting. I am advised by Revenue that the VAT rating of goods and services is subject to the requirements of EU VAT law, with which Irish VAT law must comply. The VAT directive obliges each member state to have a standard rate of VAT and allows that a member state may choose to have no more than two reduced rates of VAT which may be applied to certain goods and services.  In addition, within this rates structure the directive allows for historic VAT treatment to be main…

I was responding to the question the Deputy provided to me in writing. He asked about a rebate or an exemption from VAT for domestic energy supplies. I answered the question that was put to me. He made reference to the Czech Republic but it is notable that out of all the members of the European Union, at the moment only two are engaged with the Commission and the Union regarding a change in the VAT regime for energy pricing and the cost of energy. The Deputy is asking me to stand up. I am already standing by those …

The Deputy must note the starting positions of those other countries. The starting position of Spain and the Czech Republic is a standard rate of 21%. We already apply a lower rate than 21%. Our starting position compared to that of those other countries is very different. The starting position of Spain is 21% while our starting position is 13.5%. That is the difference. They have an interest in seeking to make a change in their VAT payment because their VAT rate is so much higher than ours. Those are the figures. …

I should remind the Deputy of the many different ways in which wealth is currently taxed, for example through capital gains tax, deposit interest retention tax, or DIRT, and the local property tax. Any revenue raised from a wealth tax may not therefore be additional to the existing forms of wealth taxation, as revenues from those taxes could be affected by the introduction of a wealth tax. On the issue of household wealth, late last year the Central Bank published a report, Household Wealth: What is it, who has it,…

I noted in my reply the array and level of taxes we have on capital. Our capital gains tax and capital acquisitions tax are very high in comparison to many other countries in the European Union and OECD countries. We already tax capital at a very high level. The Deputy was right in saying I acknowledged in my reply that a share of the wealth is wrapped up in property that is owned in terms of the family home and in property investments some people may make. The reason we have a local property tax is to tax that for…

How many of the workers the Deputy referred to are employed by the corporations to which he also referred? Many of those corporations are very large employers employing a large share of the workers he correctly identified. We receive income tax on the salaries those corporations pay those workers. We receive tax from the investments those corporations make here. It comes back to the challenge we face in that many other countries are competing for the level of foreign direct investment we have here. The benchmark fo…

Ireland was one of the first countries to divest public money from fossil fuel investments. The Fossil Fuel Divestment Act 2018 was signed into law by the President of Ireland in December of that year.  The Act imposes certain prohibitions and restrictions with respect to the investment by the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, of assets of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, in certain fossil fuel undertakings. It prohibits ISIF from directly investing in any undertaking that generates 20% or more…

ISIF is already doing this on a national level. It has published a list of the nearly 250 fossil fuel companies it does not invest in, much of it for the reason the Deputy has just outlined in that we believe, as a country, it is appropriate we not invest in fuels and technology that can do more harm to the future of our world and national environment. It was one of the first agencies of its kind to make a move of this nature. The Commission has brought forward what it refers to as taxonomy proposals, brought forwa…