Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister's answer. My concern is not the yield although it is the concern of the Minister because he must hit the budget figures. My concern on this, as with as my concern about changes to DIRT and tax treatment of health insurance, is in respect of behaviour. I am less concerned about whether the change will bring in €14 million, €16 million or €18 million and more concerned about whether it will turn people off investing their money in Irish investment accounts and beginning to move offshore. The Minister has to be interested in the yield but I am interested in behaviour. With regard to health insurance policies, I do not know if any behavioural change has been factored in. The Minister's officials gave me some useful information suggesting it is pretty inelastic. Hopefully, there will not be too much behavioural change. What is more interesting is not whether there is an increased yield of 4% or 2% but whether 10,000 families drop their health insurance policies, which is the wider socio-economic impact. Perhaps the Minister can do something next year with a technical appendix on elasticity or projected behavioural changes. The Minister made the point that this section brings DIRT and investments together so that we do not see money moving out of banks and into investment funds.