Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am genuinely confused. When we tabled this amendment, we thought we had either got this issue wrong and missed something or we had actually stumbled upon something. The more I hear the lack of a real rationale other than there will be disruption in the sector, which there will be for 1 million people, as the Minister rightly said, the more I think it is the latter. How, precisely, does not extending the levy to the two institutions that are the cause of that disruption and anxiety benefit the 1 million people who will be seriously disrupted by their action?

If it is a goodbye reward for the two banks that have just deserted those 1 million people, it is bizarre in the extreme. I do not see how it lessens the difficulty, hardship and anxiety one iota. One would have to assume that it is not that, and this is where I would like clarification, but a kind of boon to the three remaining banks. It is saying that given all of this, and the fact they will be getting all these extra customers, we are not going to charge the levy to the same extent we might in the situation where we made the decision to extend it. Otherwise, I just do not see how this lessens or, to use the Minister's phrase, "add to", the difficulty, hardship and so on he is anticipating as a result of these changes.

If it were decided to distribute the €63 million evenly among the 1 million people who had just been disrupted, I could understand the rationale, but that is not what is happening from what I can see. Frankly, I would keep the bank levy going for decades. I take the Minister's point that he had not projected the money so it is not a loss of money to the Exchequer. He decided to extend it by a year. By only levying it on the three remaining banks, less money comes in. However, when there is the same amount of business and it is calculated based on the DIRT payment requirements, which are related to the amount of business, I do not understand why it is less. Does it not mean that the amount of levy being paid as a proportion of the number of accounts is now less?

I do not get why is he doing that. Who is benefiting from this? However the Minister might explain it, I do not see how the customers are benefiting. I do not see how not imposing this levy on the institutions is benefiting the customers. Arguably by getting in additional revenue, which he would if he still collected the €150 million, that would be extra money to the public which he could possibly use to alleviate difficulties, hardship and distress. He has some way to go to convince us that it is beneficial to anybody.