Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Rabbitte. I appreciate that greatly and will thank him, personally, when I meet him.

Second, as I understand it the Minister is looking at all of the allowances. The third point is that this particular mechanism does not just relate to a handful of people. I am not sure what the figure is but it is used by quite a lot of people. The argument which has been used for a long time is that there are many people, some termed non-resident who come here and pay tax, who spend quite a lot of money and have many businesses in this country. They generate a good deal of wealth. They could go elsewhere or stay elsewhere and it is better to have them in the country over a longer period. The Deputy is right in that it covers a certain category of people in this country. There is no doubt about that. I well recall the arguments about that. They are generally wealthy people, not FÁS workers, as the Deputy said.

The reason for the operation of the clause is that it was agreed it was better to have these people spending as many days as possible in the State. That means they have directorships, investments and property here. They spend money while they are here, probably more than the rest of us would in the entire year.

See this speech in context