Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My experience, having dealt with this issue in recent months, is that the availability of share option schemes has changed within our economy. It rarely includes, to be fair to the Deputy's point, people on low incomes - I acknowledge that - but one of the developments that has occurred is that it now includes more and more middle-income employees, depending on the kind of industry they are in. I think we saw share option schemes in the past as being forms of compensation for senior executives, but it is now the case, particularly within companies that are active in the digital economy, that they are being used, for example, to incentivise engineers and software designers, people who would very much be seen as middle-income earners and who are operationally vital to companies. Those companies then use these schemes to try to retain those employees for the long run. We have a growing amount of feedback to the effect that it is difficult to do this if one is below a certain level. Companies that are below a certain level in scale tend to be more likely than not indigenous. Again, that is why we are doing this. However, the Deputy is correct in what he has said, that is, that this scheme will more than likely apply to people on middle incomes and above. The only exception I can think of is if someone were to join on perhaps some form of graduate recruitment scheme. Such schemes could include programmes such as this.