Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare is just out. In any case, it is new to the committee, whereas I know the Ministers have had it on their desks for a while. It is clear from the recommendations that the commission is not keen on reduced-VAT or zero-VAT mechanisms. However, one of the issues the committee discussed at length at its meeting last week was the openness of the EU to the greening of VAT. IBEC stated that the definition of the greening of VAT was so broad that somebody would have to audit a list all of the time and in its view we were not doing enough to eke out what could be green in terms of a reduced VAT rate.

Would the Minister for Finance like to respond to that point?