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

To look at the figures that have been put forward by the sector in regard to the on-cost this could pose to them, my understanding is that it has suggested it could be between €600 and €700 per vehicle. With regard to what that means from a tourism point of view, let us say all of that €600 or €700 was to be passed on to the tourist. Most car rental agreements for tourists tend to be over a number of days and they could be for a week or a bit longer. If the company makes the choice to pass all of this on to a tourist, it means an additional cost of €1.50 to €2 per day. The question I would put to the committee is whether it is good use of the State's resources to be unknowingly investing €20 million per year in maintaining a discount like this. My view is that the answer to that question is "No". We should be willing, area by area, to find examples of things like this that we are willing to change. Three, four or five changes like this in every budget is €50 million to €100 million extra of base broadening in a way that is sustainable for our country, and I think that is what we should be doing.

Am I willing to undertake a further economic appraisal of it beyond what we have done? No, I am not. As I said, given what an economic appraisal looks like and the amount of work involved in doing this, it is good use of my Department's resources to only do this in regard to decisions above a certain level. I could say, for every single decision I make, that I will not make that decision because it is going to create the potential for cost somewhere. That is the reason none of these things has changed for 20 years and it is the reason that, in bigger areas, one of which we will come onto later in the day, we have been willing to leave really big issues in place in our tax code for too long. I believe we should adopt a different approach and this is one example of it. As I said, if there are any further issues I have missed in this regard which committee members want to make me aware of, I am happy to engage on that. However, I want to be clear that I believe this is a change that is needed and that we should be willing to make the case for changes like this to be made.