Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I will not deal with all the points made but the following is the position. We have taken a historical and a current look at all the schemes in every area and made changes to some of them. Some are gone or are being phased out. Others will remain for continual appraisal by the Department of Finance to see their merits over time. Some will live on because they are beneficial. The cap on various tax reliefs on high earners to reduce their annual tax liabilities, an issue debated in this House over a long period, was announced by the Minister for Finance and will be passed into law by means of the Finance Bill, debate on which will begin today.

The effective tax rate in this country for people on the average wage has fallen from about 28% to 15%, which represents a considerable reduction for the ordinary hard-pressed person. I will not discuss the SSIA scheme, but it is always amusing that people criticised the initiative and said it was ridiculous yet now say we should extend it.

I am glad this debate has shown that many of these schemes are beneficial. Where they are not, are being abused, have run out of time or are not necessary, we will move on from them, as the Minister for Finance said. This has been a good year's work by the Minister for Finance in being the first person in 20 years to do a full examination of all the schemes, to outline his future intentions in the case of a large number of them and to enact relevant legislation, some of which he has done since the budget.

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