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

Regarding overall tax performance, I note that for the first quarter of this year we collected €12 billion overall, which is an increase of 3.5% on the same quarter a year ago. It is a gap versus profile of €140 million. A sum of €140 million is a lot of money of course, but there is a gap of -1.2% compared with what we were due to collect. That is well within the kind of variance in tax collecting we would expect to have at this point in the year. We are strongly of the view that we will collect our annual target.

In regard to the Deputy's second question, we are considering that at the moment. Would there be any impact on the way we tax if we took account of the developments that occurred last year because of a better understanding of the effect of certain engines and fuels on our environment? The answer to that question is "yes". We will have to look at how we will change tax policy, but we are at a very early stage in doing that.