Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Monday, 16 November 2020

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

No. Let us deal with this. Regardless of the Minister's intention, will he clarify whether the payments that were made between 13 March and 5 August, which was before they were put on a statutory basis, were paid out, as has been repeatedly said by him and others, under section 202 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005? Is that the legal basis on which those hundreds of millions of euro were paid? I believe the answer is "Yes". Therefore, is it not clear from the table in section 13 of the Finance Bill that payments under section 202 of the 2005 Act are exempt from income tax? Let us differentiate between the Minister for Finance's position as stated on the Dáil record and the actual legal position of the State as stated by the Houses of the Oireachtas, namely, that these were payments that were non-taxable. The Houses should not now be asked to rewind the clock and make them taxable.

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