Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I read somewhere recently that the Minister is working his way again through listening again to all the Beatles' songs. The song I have in the back of my head is one George Harrison wrote in the mid-1960s, "Taxman". I want to ask the Minister about a Covid solidarity tax. It is an issue that has been discussed and debated more or less since the beginning of the pandemic but one which has come to the fore again in recent weeks. First, we had a senior official in the International Monetary Fund, IMF, raising the idea of a Covid solidarity tax and pointing out that there had been winners in the pandemic, not least of which would include the likes of online shopping platforms, video calling companies, pharmaceutical companies and others, but that there were also losers, not least of which would be the poor, people in lower-income jobs and perhaps in particular, young people.

A Covid solidarity tax could raise significant sums of money and it could be used for a variety of purposes, not least of which could be job creation. That will be a significant issue as we hopefully emerge from the pandemic, in particular investment in jobs for young people. However, I note the issue came home a little bit more. Incidentally, the IMF is very much an establishment organisation. What one probably sees there is defenders of the establishment understanding the threat to the status quoposed by unprecedented inequality and feeling the need to clip the wings of the super-rich in order to protect the system of the super-rich. I am a supporter of a Covid solidarity tax for rather different reasons, including the point I just made about investment in jobs for young people. The issue came a little bit closer to home when a junior Minister in the Government outlined his support for the concept of a Covid solidarity tax being levied here in this jurisdiction. I understand that the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, of the Green Party has written to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. He outlined the case and put it in writing, in particular for reaching poverty reduction targets to which the Government committed. He feels that a measure such as this will be necessary in order to make progress in that regard and to avoid an increase in poverty in the course of the pandemic.

I noted the comments of the Taoiseach in the Business Postat the weekend and of the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, on this issue. They were not very in-depth comments. It was more of a summary dismissal of the proposal made by the junior Minister. I also noted some comments from the Minister for Finance, but I am not sure if they fully addressed the proposal that had been raised. I invite the Minister to take this opportunity to outline his own views and opinions on a Covid solidarity tax. I also ask whether he has replied in writing to the correspondence he received from the Minister of State, and if so, whether he will publish it?