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

We have disagreed with it. A group of colleagues adopted a special provision under the procedures in Europe to advance the financial transactions tax. Under that provision, a group of nine countries can come together. It is going nowhere. There is no agreement in respect of the proposal; and even its advocates cannot agree. The best they have come up with is to move forward with something similar to stamp duty on shares at a very low percentage level. However, we already have a 1% stamp duty on share transactions. So, what we have in place is more significant than any of the proposals coming through. While I think one or two countries have dropped out, there is a group of nine or ten that have been working on this. They have been working on it since Ireland held the Presidency in 2013. The first meeting on this was in January 2013.