Mr. Seamus Coffey:

I reiterate the point about the regime that is in place for attracting investment. The commission's report makes clear that the intention is to maintain the attraction for investment. Whatever money is being used, whether direct expenditure or tax expenditure, which are equivalent from a budgetary perspective, with €1 of a reduction in tax or €1 of additional spending having the same impact on budgetary outcomes, one wants to be sure that one is getting value for money. If one is offering a tax credit, one might want to make sure that there is additional activity and more jobs and that one is not necessarily subsidising jobs that already exist. These things have to be taken into consideration. The Department of Finance reviews the research and development tax credit and it would be good to see another one. In the main, the reviews to date support the continuation of the research and development tax credit. An updated one would be of benefit.

The Deputy briefly mentioned the wealth tax towards the end. One of the themes of the commission's report was broadening the base. It focused on capital taxes, wealth taxes, capital gains and capital acquisitions tax. It would put business taxes, corporate taxes and labour taxes, maybe excluding social insurance, a bit further down its list of priorities. Broadening the tax base is an ongoing medium-term project. There is a role for capital taxes. We have a limited one in Ireland in the form of the property tax, which could generate more if the rates or bands were changed. It would not be a huge change. It would take place over a period.