Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is welcome. We never would have expected that everyone would be of the same mind on this. It is a conversation and a debate in which people are entitled to lay their opinions on the table and have them challenged, digested and scrutinised with a view to recommendations emanating from the majority thereafter. The committee has met previously to discuss its report on the Commission on Taxation and Welfare recommendations. This issue will focus the minds of committee members to make a response on this.

Mr. Clarken spoke of the national conversation about taxing wealth in Ireland. He acknowledged that we are in a temporary position of very high yields from corporation tax but, as we have to keep stating, it is a base that is very narrow. Unfortunately, it is likely to be unsustainable despite the recent windfalls. I am also conscious of the Government’s actions and proposals in respect of windfall taxes. There will be legislation this side of the summer recess and after it, with a view to capitalising on the massive profits that have been made in energy generation. It will also deal with our unfortunate inability to keep pace with the options that could, should and may still be available in the future in the context of alternatives and having less reliance on fossil fuels and how, when the wind does not blow, we are back to the old reliables that are very expensive to maintain. They are very expensive to produce and the kind of market we have lends itself to one rather than others. That is something we are catching up on. In the meantime, however, we recognise that the windfall tax, as belated as it is, is a way to capture the colossal wealth that has been generated recently, which, in my opinion, is not all down to the war in Ukraine and so on. That is something to be conscious of.

I thank our guests for their presentations, contributions, responses and recommendations.

This is an ongoing discussion taking place within the committee. There is a duty of the committee to seek to come to a mind regarding recommendations. The first test of that, as I said, will be in the compilation of its response to the Commission on Taxation and Welfare report and the various recommendations within it, and our opinions and views and subsequent recommendations to those that we are answerable to, that being Dáil Éireann. I thank the witnesses for their contributions.