Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In my budget day speech I said "newspapers". If I were to reduce the VAT on news periodicals from 9% to 0%, I would have to reduce the VAT on all periodicals to zero. The cost of doing that would be €15 million. I gave a commitment in respect of newspapers, which we are honouring in this Finance Bill. If, however, we were to do that to periodicals as well, it would be for all periodicals. The cost of that would be €15 million. I do not believe that would be a good use of our money in the context of the fact that news periodicals are a small share of the overall periodicals sector. It is worth saying the VAT on them is still 9%, which is a reduction from 13.5% previously.