Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Just in case Mr. Cody had any thoughts of getting out of answering them, I will move on to the questions about IREFs. I have a question about the amount of withholding tax being paid by IREFs in recent years. The taxable amount has increased. If one looks at just the two most recent years for which there are reports, the amount involved went from €369 million to €621 million but the dividend withholding tax nearly halved during the same period. Despite the taxable amount nearly doubling, the withholding tax has dropped off. The effective rate now being paid by IREFs is less than 6%. When it was introduced, it was coming in at about 18%. It moved down to about a 13% effective rate, back up to 18% and is now down below 6%. Some of this may be due to those who are shareholders in terms of pension funds and so on. Does Revenue have any concern about what we are seeing in terms of withholding tax and the sharp fall in it? What is Revenue's view on that? I know it is doing a review on it.