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

As Deputies may be aware, the marine taxation review was completed by Indecon late last year. This has already been referenced by a number of Deputes. The report was submitted to the Departments of Finance; Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Transport, Tourism and Sport; and Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. The review followed from the agri-tax review that was completed the previous year and proved to be a successful assessment of the agri-tax situation. It led to considerable reform.

Deputy McGrath's amendment seeks to insert a requirement for a report on the Department of Finance response to the recommendations set out in the marine taxation review. As I have stated before, following the publication of the review, the officials of the Department of Finance were asked to consider the recommendations in conjunction with the other relevant Departments. Some of the recommendations made were found to be erroneous. Certain existing tax incentives are already available to the marine sector while others have significant state aid implications that need to be considered carefully, as Deputy Doherty has suggested.

I have brought forward provisions in the Bill to provide for three of the recommendations, namely the tax credit for fishers, the appropriate tax treatment for the fishing vessel decommissioning scheme and the extension of accelerated capital allowances in respect of energy-efficient equipment for sole traders. It is generally not the case that all recommendations arising from a review would be implemented, and I do not propose to bring forward any additional measures at the moment. However, that does not mean other recommendations in the review do not have merit. As state aid rules evolve, we may be able to make more progress in respect of some of the other recommendations.

For these reasons, I am not in favour of setting out in a report the Government response to the individual recommendations. I am not in favour of accepting this amendment. On the other hand, the Department has evaluated almost all of the recommendations. It would not be difficult for us to put the Department's assessment of the individual proposals together in a format. If Deputy McGrath was disposed to withdraw his amendment such that there was no legislative compulsion on us, we would agree to bring forward such a report at the earliest possible date. We probably need a window of approximately three months, but we could do it. I will commit to doing it within three months.