Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe as teacht. Tá sé go hiontach go bhfuil grúpaí éagsúla anseo. We would have read all of the opening statements prior to this meeting. It is good to have a comprehensive number of people and views here this evening.

I will start with NERI, which noted that "The current highly regressive system of tax breaks effectively imbeds inequality of opportunity across generations and does so without any economic justification or rationale". Tax expenditure is an issue that the committee has considered in recent times. From sitting beside Deputy Boyd Barrett at many of those committee meetings, he always used the phrase that tax expenditures form "a shadow budget" so they should satisfy the three themes of being timely, targeted and temporary. Often, there are concerns that a tax expenditure while perhaps initially meeting these criteria does not after some time has elapsed. Although a tax expenditure may continue after it has outlived its use or purpose and perhaps due to pressure from those who would benefit. Recently this committee produced several recommendations on this matter and I would like to hear the thoughts of the delegations on two of our recommendations. The first recommendation was that the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners agree a definition and publish a common list of tax expenditures. The second recommendation was that the Department of Finance engage with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to recruit the appropriate number of staff and obtain the resources necessary to review the number of tax expenditures. I will start off with that. I advise the Chairman that I have quite a few questions.