Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's response is disappointing. Apart from the bit at the end, most of what he said is almost word for word what he or his predecessor have told me on previous occasions through parliamentary questions and other means. We understood the tax strategy group was looking at the issue in a preliminary way, with the Department looking at it in more depth. I accept there is an issue in terms of resource allocations and that priorities must be set, but we are another year on and there is a massive number of share buy-backs taking place within companies.

There is an anomaly here and, in fairness to the Minister and his predecessor, they recognised it is something that must at the very least be looked at. Putting it off for another year is really regrettable. This is not a small issue and it should get the attention of the Department. It has the potential to bring significant revenue to the State and it has the potential to close down an inequality in how companies buy back shares and how one method is treated as a chargeable event and the other two methods are not.

That being said, we are now on the Finance Bill and the work has not been done so we have to move on from here. The one thing I ask the Minister to do, if his Department is now to carry out before the Finance Bill of next year that work we had expected it to do this year, is to have that work published at the very least as part of the tax strategy group papers so we are not waiting until in advance of the Finance Bill - sometimes the reports are published on the day - in order that we can have consideration of this here in the run-up to next year's budget, if that were possible. I do not know if the Minister is planning consultation or anything in that regard or if this is just an in-house exercise, but I ask the Minister in relation to that commitment that it be at least part of the tax strategy group's work. I know it did not go into it in any depth this year because there was a separate piece of work with the Department, and that is fine. Now that we have missed that timeframe, there is plenty of time, at least the summer, to have a comprehensive piece of work published as part of those papers. Will the Minister talk to me about the methodology? Will it be just in-house or will there be a wider input from stakeholders on this?