I assume the Senator understands what I mean.

I am not talking about Aer Lingus but I hope the people there are listening closely. That could be a situation. The Senator also mentioned other payments. Some employers might have had their own reasons in terms of staffing. Those issues will, more appropriately, be dealt with by the Workplace Relations Commission and not by Revenue. I stress that the Revenue Commissioners will not be involved in these types of issues but whatever the adjudications are they will implement them financially from the Revenue point of …

I congratulate the Leas-Chathaoirleach on his recent appointment. I know he will do an excellent job in the Seanad for whatever great number of years we have ahead of us. I welcome the opportunity to address the Seanad today on the Investment Limited Partnerships (Amendment) Bill 2020. The Bill seeks to update the operation of the Investment Limited Partnerships Act, as outlined in the programme for Government. It is also set out in the Ireland for Finance strategy. Some will find this quite a technical Bill as it …

I thank Senators for their contributions and we can have a more detailed discussion on Committee Stage and Report Stage. I want to deal with some of the specific issues raised. Some Members raised similar issues but came at them from a different perspective. Senator D’Arcy referred to the important issue of sustainable finance. This fund will help raise funds for sustainable climate projects. What is it all about? It helps to raise funds, manage funds and invest in funds related to sustainable financial products. T…

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I wish her luck in her position as well. I acknowledge the kind remarks from Deputies on my appointment as Minister of State. I am standing in today for the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Eamon Ryan. I thank the proposers of this motion and all those who have contributed to this important and timely debate on an important issue. I take the point that the protest yesterday was a large and reluctant protest. People have said that a lot of discussion went on over m…

There are ten minutes left.

Or almost ten minutes.

I fell behind earlier on.

I thank the Acting Chairman. I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce Financial Provisions (Covid-19) No. 2 Bill 2020 to the House this afternoon. The Bill provides the legislative basis to introduce the tax measures the Government announced as part of the €7.2 billion July jobs stimulus last week. The plan is the next stage in our response to the Covid-19 crisis and will help businesses get back on their feet, ensuring as many people as possible can return to work in accordance with public health and Gove…

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach and I welcome the contributions from 14 Senators on Second Stage. I will make some general comments and we can then discuss the Bill on a section-by-section basis on Committee Stage. A number of issues were raised. I welcome the generally positive tone and support for this legislation. Some people have highlighted issues that could be but are not included and some that could not be included in a Bill such as this. Other particular measures were mentioned that people are not satis…

Senator Bacik can make the case here on Committee Stage. Reference was also made to farmers and the cycle-to-work scheme.

They are not specifically included in that. I think the reason is that the self-employed are not included. The reason generally is that the cycle-to-work scheme is administered through the employer, through the PAYE system, so it is really suitable for people who have an employer and can work through the PAYE system. The self-employed are not in that category. I do not suggest it will happen, but the difficulties regarding self-employed people operating a scheme like this would be immense because they make tax retu…

I understand what is being said. As I indicated, we are not proceeding on a sector-by-sector basis. The July stimulus includes a suite of measures covering approximately 50 items, eight or ten of which are included here. We will discuss legislation covering other matters tomorrow, and we already discussed a number of matters earlier in the week. Some of the Government measures take the form of grant schemes that do not require legislation. We are taking an economy-wide approach and asking people to take advantage o…

There are two aspects to this. We do not want to give the Minister too much power to decree through a statutory instrument a measure which should take the form of legislation. Such measures must be debated here. There is also a practical administrative reason related to the Revenue database on specific sectors. Many businesses could be in similar sectors or could be involved in multiple sectors. The technology does not allow us to pick a particular sector to implement a niche measure. The Revenue's data collection …

I understand what Senator Bacik is saying and the issues she raises, which are very valid. They cannot, however, be accommodated in this legislation. The recommendation seeks to restrict the hiring practices of employers who want to access the TWSS, the EWSS or the special warehousing and interest provisions already contained in the Bill. It proposes that entry to such schemes would mean that employers would not be able to hire new workers into roles where lay offs have occurred, or hire new workers unless the work…

The Senator will appreciate that I am here today to deal only with this particular Covid-related legislation. This scheme is solely administered by the Revenue Commissioners. Everybody understands that we do not want the tax office adjudicating on matters of labour law or the rights of people to seek representation through trade unions. I am aware that the intentions are good, but I suspect there will be lots of opportunities to raise this matter again. This is one of the first times I have heard somebody suggestin…

I understand the principle behind the recommendation and the spirit in which it is proposed. I have outlined the particular difficulties we have in asking Revenue to get into dealing with employment law. The Senator correctly noted that there is already provision in the legislation to address a situation where an employer might let somebody go and then hire two new people. She is correct that this does impact on employment law. One of the reasons we included it was to ensure there was no abuse of this legislation. …

We have had a good debate on this. Everyone accepts, and I accept, the position of proprietary directors. They were included in the TWSS and there is a change in this legislation. I am not sure of the rationale as to why they were included previously but are excluded now. However, generally, the Senator has highlighted that a special measure relating to proprietary directors is not unique and has happened before. The Senator raising this will encourage the Minister to look at the issue. It will not happen before th…

I note what the Senators have said. This is a particularly excellent section of the legislation that encourages first-time buyers to save and accumulate a deposit, difficult as that is. The State is standing by them by helping them to buy their first home. What could be wrong with that? It is a good scheme from beginning to end. It helps first-time buyers and it helps to increase the supply of houses. They must be new builds. Some of the earlier criticism asked why the scheme does not cover second-hand houses. This…

We discussed this earlier. The VAT changes in the Bill are economy wide. We did not pick a particular sector to reinstate the 9% rate. There are a number of other elements in the stimulus package that can help businesses in the hospitality sector. This is just one aspect of the overall July stimulus package we are dealing with. The approach was to give this VAT reduction across the board in the entire economy rather than doing it sector by sector. If we were to start identifying sector by sector to try to gauge the…