Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a higher earner restriction on this as well, so the maximum relief that can be claimed is €80,000. We are not making it easier for these people. We are abolishing an allowance which they have. That is the purpose of this measure. The Deputy is twisting it around as if we were giving some kind of new relief to these people but we are not, we are abolishing it for the reasons to which the Deputy alluded. We do not think it is necessary in the tax code. We think it is giving an advantage to people in difficult times when the advantage is not needed. A lot of these measures crept into the tax code. Various people lobbied for various groups.

To precisely answer the Deputy's previous question, based on the 2011 taxpayers' data, it is estimated that the cost of the tax relief on loans applied in acquiring an interest in a partnership is approximately €4 million and it is availed of by approximately 1,100 claimants, but we are abolishing it, not introducing it. We are abolishing it over time to avoid undue hardship to the individuals who are claiming it. One could make a case that it was never justified in the first instance, but usually when we have reliefs such as this one that we want to abolish we allow time to phase them out.