Dr. Barra Roantree:

I will speak to the matters I raised specifically. I agree with the Deputy on the importance of stability for the pensions tax system and that people make these decisions with the long run in mind. It is important we do not chop and change the system every year or two. That is incredibly important. However, it cannot be an argument that we never change the system, particularly given there are so many issues with it currently. I agree that we should not go about doing this every year but we should try to set out a long-term vision for the pension system and move towards it. We should have a set of reforms so nobody will be surprised on getting to retirement because he or she sees something different. I agree with those kinds of statements.

On the question of motor tax, which I raised and to which the Deputy responded, I might defer in a moment to my colleague, Dr. Kakoulidou, on some of the environmental tax reliefs in place. Looking at them might raise some revenue for offset.

The Deputy made a point on family farms. We tried to be quite clear and concise in how we worded our comments on this because we know it is an incredibly emotive and important matter in so many areas of the country. I suppose this is not about small family farms or businesses being inherited. With capital acquisitions tax, the way this business and agricultural relief operates is that the value of the asset for the purposes of inheritance is written down by 90%. There is no cap on that. Combined with the €325,000 threshold for class A transfers - a person inheriting a family farm business from a father or mother - it is possible for multimillion euro businesses not to pay any capital acquisitions tax. Our point is merely that if the intention is explicit when the reviews are made to support succession within small family farms and businesses, it is not well targeted at doing that. It is all we are saying.

We can see there is a very clear and coherent policy rationale to encourage that succession but the point is that most of the benefit of this very expensive tax relief, at €360 million per year in 2019, as we have up-to-date information on that, is not going to small family farms and business. It is instead going to very large businesses. That is what we are drawing attention to rather than the validity of succession in general. I agree with the Deputy that it is incredibly important for so many areas of the country, such as my own in west Wicklow, where I grew up. I needed to clarify that as we do not want the wrong perception to come across from the matter being raised.

Dr. Kakoulidou might speak to the environmental tax reliefs.