Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This section deals with the pandemic unemployment payment and the payment that was paid prior to early August, which was known as the pandemic unemployment payment. What the Minister is attempting to do in part of this section is to turn back the clock and make taxable a payment that was not taxable under the legal basis of the Finance Act 2018. It was clear this type of payment, paid out under section 202 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, is a non-taxable payment. What the Minister is attempting to do in the Finance Bill is to rewind the clock and make taxable a payment to people who lost their jobs during the pandemic. There are serious issues in relation to this, particularly on the principle of retrospective taxation. Regardless of whatever the Minister's or the Government's personal intentions, the legal basis for this payment that was paid out, and that amounted to hundreds of millions of euro at the time, was section 202 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act and, therefore, as a result was not taxable according to section 30 of the Finance Act 2018. It is completely wrong that the Finance Bill will be looking to retrospectively tax this payment now.