Dr. Seán Healy:

Yes, that is correct. However, under our proposal, they still get to keep 94% of their profits. That is not a bad deal by any count. I am not surprised people think we are a tax haven and we get all of this bad press as a result. There is an issue with that.

On diesel and petrol duty, we made a mistake because we believed what we were told about diesel being more sustainable and environmentally friendly. In turn, we then created this space between the cost of diesel and the cost of petrol. We are saying this needs to be rebalanced. We need to increase diesel duty by six cent per litre and reduce petrol by six cent a litre and bring them together. A commercial diesel rebate scheme of five cent a litre should also be put in place because so much of the transport of goods and so forth is diesel powered. There is a hit involved but it is of a scale which is doable without causing significant problems.

We make an argument that the basic tax credits that PAYE workers get should be made refundable. In other words, people should benefit from the full value of them if they do not currently do so. That is an initiative which should be targeted only at the low paid. We have 100,000 people in poverty who have jobs. That grouping needs to be targeted. It is a straightforward way of actually putting a fair bit of money in that direction.

In the earlier session, there was a large focus on auto-enrolment and pensions. I see that as little more than a mechanism for putting more money into the private pensions industry. We need a public pension scheme. We have a contributory and non-contributory pension. Many people do not get the full contributory pension because they did not make enough contributions or get enough credits in their work life. We suggest turning the old age pension into a universal State pension, paid at contributory old age pension rate. Most of the funding would come from standard-rating the pension break. TASC and ourselves suggested this should be eliminated because it is a targeted at the top 20% who are the real beneficiaries of that. The pension should be turned into a universal pension with no gaps and no people falling through it. That would be a much better investment in pension policy.

Subsequently I would be quite happy to see the Government develop funds that people could invest in against their pension or to build up a private pension. I would like to see the Government make some effort to create funds that get away from the huge losses to people paying their pension contribution through the pensions industry.