Mr. Frank Flannery:

I thank the members for their comments. I spent all my professional working life in the not-for-profit sector and I am also a firm believer in it. I am of the view that it can bring together the best practices of the private and public sectors in order to deliver a really good product in the context of value for money and properly motivated service. It can do so in a way that neither the for-profit sector nor the public sector - which is subject to other difficulties - operating on its own can do.

I have been considering and talking about this matter for most of my life. The tax system is what it is and we did not design it. If a small island such as Ireland had a way to benefit fully from all of its capital and income generation potential, then its needs could be much more easily satisfied. However, Ireland operates in a global economy. As politicians, Deputy Boyd Barrett and his colleagues have at least some opportunity to work away at it on occasion and to put forward their points of view. If the Deputy were in government, then he would have an even better opportunity of doing so. That, however, is the way the system works. We are outside that and all we can do is accept matters as they stand. We can, however, highlight the fact that there is more than one way to distribute income and surplus resources in a society. The one thing we have never considered in this country - the facts, as we found them, prove this - is that those at corporate level, high-net-worth individuals and people at government level can be persuaded that their surplus resources should be distributed for the improvement of humanity and society and the creation of social cohesion. Even within the capitalist system, there are arguments for doing that. Capital can exist and thrive better where there is a socially-cohesive society in which there are no extremes of poverty or hardship and where everybody obtains a fair or reasonable share.

In other countries such as the United States, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg, to name but a few, there has been a huge development of philanthropy alongside pretty advanced social democratic models of government. Those models have enshrined many of the principles which we endeavour to enshrine in Ireland. Perhaps they are more advanced and do it better than we do. Philanthropy is thriving in the countries to which I refer because there will always be winners. What we are saying to the winners is that if they have surplus income they should consider - while they are alive - distributing it for socially useful purposes such as the elimination of disease or poverty, the promotion of peace, the creation of employment, etc. This country has huge problems with regard to poverty and a lack of employment and these will obtain for a number of years.

We have been charged with implementing the recommendations of the forum, which is an advisory body to the Government and which cannot do the latter. We are trying to challenge the system in this country to do a great deal more. We are also trying to get across the message that we are not as good as we believe ourselves to be. Irish people love to be praised.

That is one of our national characteristics, namely, that we respond very well to praise.