Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Do not worry, I will do so. I can be persistent. I am making the same points I made last year. The process would not be overly burdensome. I would be the last to apply additional layers of bureaucracy as we should shed bureaucracy from the agricultural community, with efficient regulations to replace the overly burdensome red tape that we have. There is the issue of asking any contractor getting payment for a service to put a PPS number on an invoice and many people know these numbers by heart. It is not a major burden to ask these people to do this. It is normal practice. I used to work in a project in the community sector and I spoke to somebody recently involved in the sector but outside of that project. As the work is State and EU-funded, if there is an event involving the Minister performing an official opening, there may be problems even supplying tea or bread for sandwiches. If the supplies from the shop were not tendered to three different parties or have a tax reference number or address, they are ineligible for consideration. Nevertheless, it seems the Revenue Commissioners believes a PPS number should not be put on what is an invoice.

We can correspond that with previous sections of the Finance Bill. The home improvement scheme is very good and we can see the rigorous checks and balances used in that respect. The contractor must go to the Revenue Commissioners and be approved, and there should be details of the work and estimated value. There must be a timeframe and they will be given a unique identification number that must be submitted to the individual paying for the work within ten days of getting paid. The contractor and claimant must provide all these details, including the property reference number for the property tax. One can speak of bureaucracy but this is to ensure nobody is fiddling the system. Asking a person to put a PPS number on an invoice for a service provided is not being overly bureaucratic. That said, I will be withdrawing the amendment until this time next year.