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

I know it is going to be hard to convince Deputy Doherty, but at the end things changed very rapidly. People keep going through the figures, and I am at the receiving end of a set of figures. Every time growth rates are marked up, it changes the tax base for next year significantly. When I was talking to the Deputy whenever we had questions after the Dáil came back at the end of September, I thought we would have growth rates of 3.5% or something like that. That changes the base. Additional moneys came in from both the Central Bank and the National Treasury Management Agency. When the Minster for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, was talking about €400 million, I understood him to be talking about €400 million on the wrong side of the line, which would have to be raised by taxes. We did raise taxation. We were fortunate in one thing. We were notified by the European Union that it had changed the tax application of services that originate in one country and are delivered in another country, for example, television signals. We were informed that whereas in the case of television signals from the UK to Ireland the VAT would continue to be deducted and go to the UK exchequer until 2015, it would come to the Irish Exchequer in 2015. There was more than €100 million in that. The yield will be €100 million in 2015 and €150 million in a full year from 2019. We also put 40 cent on a packet of cigarettes. There were tax increases as well as buoyancy of taxation.

Deputies Doherty and McGrath have a complaint which may or may not be legitimate. While I will see whether they can get a better flow of information next year, I can assure them that there was no conscious attempt to mislead them. In his pre-budget submission, Deputy Doherty had anticipated where the movement was more than Deputy McGrath did in his. That is not a criticism of Deputy McGrath. Deputy Doherty was basing it on-----