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

I welcome this levy on financial institutions. As the committee will see from the amendment which has been ruled out of order and which I discussed with the Minister earlier, we should not allow AIB or Bank of Ireland to avail of section 33 and we should have increased their levy if they were able to profit from what we have done in section 33.

Did any financial institution which would be subject to this section contact the Department, the Minister or any officials and express any concerns about it's implications or potential impact? There have been arguments in the past that if the Government did something like this or increased levies, it would scare off financial institutions. In that context, has there been any correspondence with or interaction between said institutions, officials in the Department, the Financial Regulator or the Central Bank? Have any concerns been raised and passed on to the Department and if so, what were those concerns?