Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Those interested in making submissions may find it useful to examine the discussion documents of the tax strategy group which are available on the Department's website. Future tax strategy group documents will be available on the site also. It will be a matter for us in the first instance to examine the submissions we receive and what the review outlines. Consultants have yet to be appointed. We have advertised for them. They will report to me. The tax strategy group will consider matters. Those documents are available. It is incorrect, therefore, to state, in terms of the availability of these documents, that it is a hidden world.

My predecessor made many good decisions. If one makes a large number of decisions, one might not get everything right but one has more chance of getting matters right by doing so than by remaining paralysed by analysis, making no decisions, waiting for someone else to make them on one's behalf or waiting to see if one is in the clear politically before making such decisions. One must go with one's judgment and instincts on occasion. Analysis has a part to play but it cannot be substituted for the fact that one must sometimes make political decisions which do not meet with unanimous acclaim. We have reached the point in this country where everyone must agree with one before one makes a decision. It is as though one is doing something wrong. Ministers are obliged to make decisions. How they make them and the methodology they use is a matter for themselves. It is the responsibility of others to decide subsequently on one's judgment. That is the nature of democratic accountability. We all have our different styles and our own ways of working.

Reference was made to committees and their role. It is open to committees to organise their business in any way they wish. If they want to make a contribution to this debate during the year, they are more than welcome to do so.

I have set out my stall in terms of how I am going about my job. People can criticise me but I have decided, for the reasons outlined, to continue to operate as I have been doing and I will defend my judgment and my decision to do so. It is my intention to deal with these matters in the next budget. I intend this to be a comprehensive review in order that we will become wiser and more informed, based on the role these incentive reliefs and other reliefs have played thus far, in terms of how we should proceed. While people might not like the way decisions are taken many, if not all, of the decisions in question have a great deal of merit and have proven extremely successful. My predecessor's tenure was proof of that. Like all my predecessors, I will go about doing this job in my own inimitable way.

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