Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will try to get to that as well. A question was asked about the Olympic Council of Ireland inquiry. I do not think it is toothless and I will explain why. We took a long time to consider whether to make it statutory or non-statutory, and it could have been either. The reasons we went with the non-statutory option related to cost and time. These factors were obviously going to be important. We hope it is going to be cheaper and quicker as a result. We would have to have gone to the Dáil and we would not be starting until next week if we had gone the statutory route. On top of that - I suppose this was the absolute deciding point - the three main parties that we expect to give evidence to the inquiry, namely, the OCI, PRO10 Sports Management and the third company, have all volunteered to participate, give evidence and produce any papers we want. Therefore, we did not see any need at this stage for a statutory inquiry. However, the judge who is in charge has the option of coming back and indicating that he believes it should be statutory, if he is being frustrated in any way. We went that way because we do not know how far it will go and we do not know how big it is going to be. We have the co-operation of the main parties involved and the judge has the option to go statutory.

Deputy Murphy asked a question about the 9% VAT rate. I think it has been a great success. It has been a fantastic success and I think a change would be very unexpected. I cannot predict what is going to happen in the budget and I will not do so, but I would be a great supporter of what has happened in the past and the benefits which the provision has given, especially to smaller hospitality units. The benefits have been absolutely immeasurable.

I take the point that at this stage some bigger players may not need it any longer, in particular, the Dublin hotels. However, it is difficult to separate one from the other. What is really important is that the employment and benefits that have been given to the smaller hospitality areas should not be taken away.