Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There have been changes to this legislation which dealt with some aggressive tax planning that was taking place with these funds where individuals did not draw down from the fund and therefore what was in the fund was passed on to a relative after death. It was a very aggressive tax incentive and it was closed down by the former Minister Michael Noonan, if memory serves me right. The issue was that at a certain point, the fund began to vest so it became illogical for them not to draw down the money before their 75th birthday.

I am conscious that this is very technical. I want to understand the changes that are taking place in the context of the closure of the aggressive tax planning to which I refer. If that information is not available to the Minister now, perhaps a note could be provided between now and Report Stage. It is a question of what Michael Noonan did when he was Minister for Finance, which was to stop that tax planning where a PRSA owner never took the benefits from the PRSA and therefore the taxes were avoided and the assets were passed tax-free to a surviving spouse.