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

The tax liabilities of individuals or companies are confidential. We are always reliant on Revenue to look at patterns in situations like this. The Minister for Finance, members of a finance committee or anybody else does not have access to the individual tax details of an individual's liability or a company's liability. The provision put in place on the advice of Revenue is that each individual investment up to €150,000 be approved by it rather than the individual or company making a stand-alone decision to invest and then automatically getting the relief. The fact that prior approval is necessary is a significant restriction.

On the general issue of information, Revenue deals with these issues when it appears before the various Oireachtas committees in regard to its annual report and so on. While Revenue cannot provide details in relation to an individual taxpayer it does supply sufficient information on trends on group activity to satisfy. At the end of the day, Revenue is independent. We all know the reason it has to deal with matters on a confidential basis. I believe Revenue is trustworthy and I support what it does.