Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I move amendment No. 4:

In page 8, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following:

“3. The Minister shall, within six months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on options available regarding the merger of USC and PRSI.".

This amendment calls for a report on the options available regarding the merger of USC and PRSI to be laid before the Dáil within six months of the passing of the Act. This concept was given life in the middle of the Taoiseach's election campaign, which is never a good time to develop policy, particularly in terms of tax that in the next number of years will bring in approximately €5 billion. I note from the Minister's earlier comments that the Government does not know where this is going at this point in time, which is fair enough. It is an idea-concept that we need to be careful with it. We should not be limping from Finance Bill to Finance Bill in terms of chipping away at the USC and providing for some of it to go to the Social Insurance Fund without a clear roadmap as to where we are going. I am open to ideas. Looking to international standards, we fall short here in terms of employee and employers' PRSI. That said, if we move a €4 billion - soon to be €5 billion - tax head into the Social Insurance Fund we will have a €5 billion hole in terms of the tax take required to fund different services, unless the social insurance contributions are to be used to fund existing services. We need a detailed roadmap. I do not expect that this would be completed within six months.

The social insurance system is complex enough without having it merged with the USC. However, I believe that within six months, which will be a year after the Government announced this proposal, we should have a paper setting out options. We need options set out on paper. I note what the Minister had to say about a working group and terms of reference to be drawn up. This is too big a measure not to have it properly scrutinised. We cannot wait for further announcements on the floor of the Dáil in terms of next year's Finance Bill. That would be wrong. We need proper legislative scrutiny of this measure. This is not about cutting taxes or increasing taxes, rather, it is about the different ways taxes are paid and the services they provide for. I hope the Minister is open to the preparation of the report sought given as he outlined earlier he proposes to establishment a working group and so on. I am asking for a commitment that within six months we would have some options for consideration by the Committee on Budgetary Oversight, which is the appropriate committee for the working group to feed into in terms of its work and where it is at.