Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. There was a lot there and we will not be able to cover all of it, but maybe I will touch on the national debt, corporation tax and the rental market and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, might touch on the Ukraine issue and the making of provision in that regard. The Deputy spoke quite a bit about housing and farming.

The Deputy made a good point on the national debt. We are spending approximately €3.5 billion servicing it. It is interest that we are paying at the moment. While the average interest rate across the portfolio is 1.5%, much of the funding to which it relates was borrowed at a time of historic low interest rates. We know what has happened in recent times. When the debts mature and fall due, the Government will either pay them down or refinance them. If we refinance, it will be at a higher rate, meaning the interest bill will rise, so reducing the national debt is genuinely attractive. There might not be many votes in it but it is the right thing to do. It future-proofs the public finances for the years ahead and helps generations to come in that as little as possible of their tax will go towards servicing the national debt built up in our time.

The Deputy made some good points on corporation tax. For his information, according to data the Revenue Commissioners published today, we collected €22.6 billion last year in corporate tax. Just over €10 billion of that came from manufacturing, with about half of that €10 billion coming from the pharmaceutical and chemicals sectors and about €3.8 billion from ICT manufacturing, at the hardware end. Four billion euro of the €22.6 billion came from the information and communications sector, which, broadly speaking, is the tech sector and includes software development. This points to a very significant contribution to the overall corporate tax take in Ireland last year, and that has to be acknowledged. There is a wealth of information in the data published today by the Revenue Commissioners, and it is well worth considering.

I will comment briefly on the rental market. The Deputy has put on the record his own interest in the area. That is no secret and he declares it in his returns every year. We want landlords to stay in the market. We are aware that too many are leaving. They have an important role to play in the provision of accommodation. I have given a commitment that the budget will have measures to help retain existing investment in the sector and also attract new investment. I will not go into any detail on that, as the Deputy will expect. I am not going to act sooner than the budget because the matter involves careful design work and I need to get it right and then ensure there are no unintended consequences. We have seen too many landlords leave the market. The commitment I have made is one I am happy to make because it is important to signal to landlords that we want them to stay and others interested in investing in the sector to provide accommodation for tenants to look on doing so favourably. I will do the best I can within the constraints that always exist, to try to make it more attractive to stay in the sector or enter it in the first instance.