I will tell Deputy Durkan what I do not understand. All of the people in various categories who earn in excess of €100,000, such as Ministers, executives of companies, upper management in companies, bankers, consultant doctors and barristers - I am sure we could think of others - do valuable work. However, is their work more valuable than a nurse's work? Should their work be better remunerated than a nurse' work? Should their work be better remunerated than a teacher's work? Should their work be better remunerated …

Good point, and they should possibly pay an extra levy just for that. That is certainly the logic of our proposals to redress the balance in terms of net earnings ultimately, which is what we are trying to do through a myriad of means. I would say in response to the Minister's direct response to our proposal that in order to cover the cost of abolishing the USC, which he promised he would get rid of and he reneged on that promise - it was an austerity tax and he promised to get rid of it - as well as introducing th…

I move amendment No. 7: In page 15, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following: “Renters Tax Credit 12. Within 3 months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay a report before the Dáil on whether a regime of rent controls would be a more effective way to support renters than a renters tax credit.”. To move things along, I did not intervene in the previous discussion but, in a way, we are covering similar territory here. In this amendment, we suggest that rather than introducing a renter's tax credi…

Not surprisingly, the Minister is not able to answer the question as to what I say to Jacqueline, Richard and their two children who are facing homelessness because they are being evicted by their landlord on the grounds of sale, which the Government allows. In the middle of a housing emergency, which the Minister does not want to acknowledge, he is allowing evictions. What do I say to them? Where do they go? They cannot afford average rents of €2,400 per month. They would be lucky to find somewhere at that cost in…

That is correct. It is just not good enough for the people. Believe me, we are engaging with the local authority. Sometimes that helps us get solutions, but more often than not, it does not. So many people are falling through the cracks and that number is growing all the time. It is just not good enough. I am not going to ascribe motives or anything else, but I do think there is politics involved. The Government is labouring under the illusion that at some point, if the supply of public and private houses reaches a…

On Committee Stage, I asked the Minister about the projections for corporate pre-tax gross profits. I just found the note in that regard. To be honest, it is unbelievable. Deputy Barry just estimated what it might be, but it is way in excess of that. This is newsworthy. I do not know if the Minister has put this information out there, but Janey Mac. The Minister is estimating that gross pre-tax corporate profits for 2022 were €348 billion. That is astonishing. To put that in perspective, the figure for 2020, which …

To be clear, I am fully aware the figure is not the taxable profit. Indeed it is precisely the point I make year after year. There are gross profits and then there is a myriad of tax reliefs, deductions and allowances that write down the taxable profit. That is the problem. Workers get a few tax credits but they do not see the level of write-down in what is taxable in their income that these corporations get. The figure for 2020 pre-tax profits was €193 billion. The taxable income after all the loopholes was €110 b…

I move amendment No. 17: In page 65, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following: “Wealth Taxes 24. Within 3 months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay a report before the Dáil on the amount of revenue that would be raised if he were to establish a Wealth Tax that taxed the top 5 per cent of households 2 per cent of their accumulated wealth less 1 million for a family home.”. We debated this on Committee Stage. I will leave it at that. I am keen to get to some amendments further down the line.

I move amendment No. 21: In page 85, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “Reports 30. Within 3 months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay a report before the Dáil on intra-group transfers and whether reliefs on such transfers are being used as a means to shift profits and reduce taxable income.”.

I move amendment No. 27: In page 101, between lines 1 and 2, to insert the following: “Reports 40. Within 3 months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall produce a report on amending the guidelines in relation to section 481 (Film Tax Relief), to clearly define the requirement for producer companies in receipt of the relief to be the legally responsible employer for all those working on film productions funded by the relief as against the DAC which only has a temporary existence; and further to guarantee th…

Section 481 relief is state aid. Therefore, it has to comply with EU directives in this area. People cannot negotiate away their rights. They cannot do that. They are not allowed to do it. I want the Minister to understand the point I am making. People cannot negotiate away their rights. No group that claims to represent the industry can negotiate away their rights. I will send the Minister some of the correspondence from Equity, the Film Workers Association and the writer I quoted briefly who made the same point. …

This is complicated and it takes a while to get your head around it. The CEO of Screen Producers Ireland, who struck the agreement referred to by the Minister, gave evidence to the WRC in a case taken by a film crew worker that there was no possible basis, having due regard to the realities of the sector, on which a relationship of employment could be said to have existed between the parties involved. This was on the basis of what she said were the clearly established industry norms and practices governing working …

I am saying it is the structure of the relief. I am asking the Minister to go to Europe and ask for an adjudication on this. That is a reasonable thing to ask, is it not? How is that not a reasonable thing to ask, seriously, if there is question mark? Have we not been down this road before with compliance or non-compliance with EU directives, where people had to go all the way to flipping European courts to get adjudications?

At the weekend, there was further evidence of the desire of Fine Gael to abandon Ireland's neutrality with its resolution to get rid of the triple lock arrangement and, essentially, create more flexibility for the Government to deploy Irish troops in military adventures and conflicts. That is an outrageous attack on our neutrality and is not in line with what the majority of people want. Could the Taoiseach comment on whether he supports this line of thought? Will we remove one of the important restrictions on any …

He is visiting NATO bases for fun.

The US is too.

I note the Taoiseach mentioned climate change and security. I wonder did he raise the point that the single biggest institutional emitter of CO2 emissions in the world is the United States military. Did he raise the point that major military powers are not even required to reveal their CO2 emissions? We count everybody else's emissions but we do not count the US military's emissions.

Because there have been estimates done which suggest it produces about 51 million tonnes per year but it is not required to reveal that. I find it amazing that the Deputy would even joke about something as serious as that. Did the Taoiseach ask for that? How does he tally his commitment to increase military expenditure and the EU's commitment to increase military expenditure when there is a direct relationship between the size of military activity, armies and so on and the level of CO2 emissions and climate damage?

I asked about the military and emissions.

While their army just keeps-----