Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The credit union movement. With regard to entrepreneurial funds, we had the business expansion scheme, BES, or the employment and investment incentive scheme, EIIS, which replaced it, but there was not much take-up of those schemes. Could it be considered in the upcoming budget with a view to making it more friendly to people and perhaps investments could be made directly by people into a business and tax relief allowed on such investment and the person concerned would pay the capital gains tax on the way out.

There does not seem to have been much take-up of the seed capital relief scheme, which has been in place for many years. Could it be simplified such that the tax a person would get back in terms of the previous five years of tax paid could be invested in the shares as opposed to one having to invest the overall amount? Currently if one invests €100,000 in a company, one must be a director of the company and one can offset one's tax - up to the previous five years of tax paid - against that €100,000, but perhaps it could be provided that a person could invest €100,000 and claim it back if one had paid that amount over a previous period because currently one has to find €100,000 first which is a struggle. The amount could be €50,000, I am simply using the figure of €100,000 as an example, but one has to find the money to invest in share capital and then one can get the tax paid on that claimed over the previous five years which, in theory, works very well but, in practice, is very difficult. That scheme has been in existence since the early 1990s but there has not been much take-up of it.