Mr. Frank Flannery:

I thank the members for their contributions. We wholly accept the validity of all the points that were made but we would also assert the absolute validity of the case we are making, namely, that there is real and present danger in this area. We have a small window of opportunity to put some provisions in place in order that we can begin to prevent a greater hardship occurring when all this money moves out of Ireland in the next two to three years or whenever. This issue has been identified in time and there is an opportunity to resolve it. We have done something more fundamental in bringing forward the report of the Forum on Philanthropy and Fundraising and in trying to implement it. It reveals a huge gap in our national culture and in our way of behaving. We hope that Ireland will discover the values of the not-for-profit sector in society, its effectiveness and efficiency in dealing with problems, in creating employment and in speeding up our recovery but also bringing to that recovery values which will enable us to avoid the excesses of our last experience. If this generation of politicians and citizens learns anything, it must be that. We got success and we built on it and then, collectively, we blew it. However, we have kept our head and we are thinking and learning from what happened. We will the learn lessons and will not do that again. We will build much more solidly and on a better and more long-term basis in the future with better values.

The concept of giving is where people do more than just what the law requires them to do and where this would be part of their culture and their thinking as individuals, families, communities, organisations, citizens, professionals and workers. Furthermore, those who are successful would build that into their life model and they would be of additional assistance to those who were not successful, and they would do it over and above what the State demands of them. It may well be that the State should demand that anyway but, none the less, we are dealing with the world as it is and we want to make the system that we have work much better.

I would hope that the members would say that there is a great deal of work to do done on this kind of thinking. It moves us into a slightly edgy area. There are real possibilities here. The 400 or 4,000 people who have significant resources should not be left outside the demands we are trying to make, rather they should be fully included. At a minimum we should seriously investigate how this might work. In response to Deputy Donnelly's point, I believe that at the beginning of the process it should kept as simple as possible. I can see the value of what he said, namely, that if it is decided that the contribution would be 10% or 15% and if somebody has as much in that respect, that it would be equivalently moderated and that person would contribute a great deal more. Perhaps that could be an eventual outcome of the process, but at least we want to bring the principle working into the process.

Human nature being what it is, if we could get this money, I would not see this as those people taking advantage of us. Such a measure should be drafted in such a way that this would not happen. It would be us making a significant demand on them to do much more and not just to say we do not like them but that they are enjoying certain facilities in our society and for that we want them to do much more.

If the State wants to frame it in such a way that all of that becomes difficult then that is a different matter. We never saw ourselves as writing a scheme. We are proposing an idea in principle. There is money to be got and this is the way we think we can do it. The Department of Finance and others are in a very good position to describe it in such a way that it avoids problems and gets the maximum return. We would like the committee to give us a little support. It is not the case that there is a final product but it could become a final product. It is well worth a try. The scheme could be reviewed after some time if necessary.