Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It emerged yesterday that NAMA had paid €158 million following the closing of the loophole around section 110 companies and that this preliminary tax liability related to its profits from September to December of last year. Given that it is a State agency, this is essentially a circular transaction but it has wider significance in that it calls into question the amount of tax that has been forgone overall in the past number of years by the use of these companies. Can the Minister comment on that? Does he know how long NAMA has been using the section 110 tax structure? Given that this is a very large liability for a period of some four months, does it raise question marks about the estimates of Revenue and the Department of Finance which were that the closing of the loophole would only bring in a total of €50 million for 2017?