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

Deputy Naughten understood the thrust of my response. I am sure there will be an opportunity to discuss all of this again on Report Stage.

On Deputy Doherty's point about accelerated capital allowances, we are examining that. In the way he put his question, he recognised that it varies from company to company. There are companies which might move to a hybrid model in which their staff are working from home for several days per week or certain types of work will be done from home more regularly. There is a gain for those companies in which case the point about the need for accelerated capital allowances is null and void, as the Deputy said himself.

There would be other companies, however, whose staff would have to work from home but they might not have the scale that larger companies may have or may have overheads for which they need to pay the costs. Accordingly, the equation for those companies is a bit different.

We will look at that for decisions we may need to make next year. I hope by the time we get to next year, we will be a little clearer on what will be the equilibrium for working arrangements for the medium term. We are not clear on that at the moment.

On the point the Deputy made about frontier workers, he acknowledged clarity has been brought to that issue during the period of Covid where those workers were not in a position to travel. The Revenue Commissioners reminded me that those workers, during normal times, would not be double-taxed anyway because a relief is made in our jurisdiction to ensure they are not paying tax twice due to having to work in Northern Ireland.

I accept the Deputy's point that this issue has come up much during 2020. Even since this clarification was issued by the Revenue Commissioners earlier on in the year, the issue has continued to develop. It appears that even if we have ameliorated the issue for this year, there are policy issues which we will have to address for the next year and beyond. I am happy to look at that through, for example, the tax strategy group process to tease out some of the issues on which we touched.