Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy McGrath used an important word, namely, metrics. In respect of the securitisation activities of certain companies in the IFSC, I had dealings with them some years ago. There would be $5 billion balance sheets at these companies that are literally just a brass nameplate. They are in Dublin, the directors are resident in Dublin and the transactions are being done on a monthly basis by names like JP Morgan, yet we have no idea of what the fund flows are. We need to know these things and the information is there. With good design of management accounting systems, we can get the headline figures and the scale of these, including how many employees there are, what funds and currencies go through and what tax is paid. It is quite easy to get this information and then we can decide that €100 billion or €1 trillion of funds is going through this industry, we think it only fair and right that this amount would attract a 0.0003% tax. Why not? It could raise €300 million.