Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Clearly, the Minister of State knows all about them too because he can read his notes to explain them to me. Deputy Liam Twomey probably knows more about them.

I refer to two issues. The information offered to Deputy Peter Mathews would be interesting because we need to scrutinise these issues to know who benefits from these tax breaks. The other aspect of interest is that of financial services. The Minister of State sees this as part of a policy on financial services, an area about which there is a dispute. I am not suggesting we should have a full-blown debate here, but if it is part of the policy and a planned strategy, in respect of which there is a dispute about the merits of a low tax regime for financial services as being the best way to generate jobs or investment in the State, it would be useful to have a proper debate. If there is a plan, as the Minister of State says, let us see it. As Deputy Róisín Shortall asked, what would be the implications? Have we modelled what might happen if we were to adopt alternatives such as not giving exemptions or, most obviously, the one being debated across Europe, a financial transaction tax? The Government regularly tells us we must not touch these because investment in the International Financial Services Centre would migrate to Britain. However, there is no evidence to back this up. These are important issues for all sides in the debate and we should have evidence to back up the assertions being made. I question whether, given our low corporation tax rate, a small additional amount of taxation levied on the financial services sector would do as much damage as is sometimes claimed by the Government. I, therefore, ask it for the evidence. Perhaps the Minister of State might tell us how we could have an informed debate on the issue. Can we have sight of any paper, plan or strategy available in order that we can debate them?