Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

On budget day I remarked on the Minister for Finance's cautious approach to budgetary matters and I meant it as a compliment. It is always important for a person in his position to be prudent. However, the reverse side of the coin is that if one is of an overly conservative bent, one might be less inclined to recognise the need to bring about changes where inequity exists. Where the Minister has pushed out the boat in this Bill he has tended to do so in a half-hearted fashion. The effect of that may be to cause more damage in terms of social inequity. I hope that both on Second and Committee Stages the Minister will be more open to examining how even these cautious approaches towards reform might be further improved because they are necessary.

Today's debate has been framed by the Government's release of the reports on the review of tax reliefs. The Minister had those reports at his disposal in October 2005 and they helped to inform him in the preparation of the budget. It is unfortunate that Opposition spokespersons and other Members of the House have only gained access to this stage of the review process today, as we begin debating the Finance Bill. The Bill is a fairly weighty document in itself but the fact that three other documents of doorstep dimensions have been added to it hardly helps our preparations in making sure that everything is examined in its proper context.

The documents reveal facts concerning how tax reliefs have been applied and how their effects will continue to be felt in future. This does no credit to the Government or to the idea of using tax reliefs properly. Even though the reports released yesterday contain useful information, which is necessary to this debate, their terms of reference were wrong. I would like the consultants to have asked why each and every one of these reliefs was introduced, by whom, who influenced the process and how they were introduced at the time? If we had the answers to those questions we could see how arbitrary the introduction of many of these tax reliefs has been. It may be anecdotal but it has never been denied that many of these reliefs were introduced the day before a budget speech was delivered to the House. If that is the way in which taxpayers have ended up paying so many billions of the country's reserves, the practice must be ended once and for all.

The Minister has indicated that he is willing to examine the question of time limits as well as discussing cost-benefit analyses but it will be a matter of debate as to how he goes about doing so. In the interim, the Minister has chosen to extend some of the more contentious schemes and introduce new tax reliefs seemingly without the benefit of such a cost benefit analysis. If that is the way the Government and the Minister intends to proceed, the interests of taxpayers will not be properly served. This is particularly true of the property reliefs, which have been mentioned by other speakers. Not only do we have to account for massive over-expenditure with seemingly little benefit in cost terms but a ratio of two to one is a high price for the country to pay for many such reliefs. The decisions made by the Minister and his predecessor will have a long and swollen tail. As revenues and tax liability increase, so will the amount of tax foregone by the State.

I was struck by one figure in the Goodbody report. It showed that the extension of property reliefs from 2004 to mid-2006 will cost taxpayers €1.3 billion. I do not think the Minister is being entirely honest in this debate because on his own watch we have seen this type of expenditure going out of control. The Minister states that he can further control such expenditure by extending time periods and increasing benefits to particular people in society but it begs further questions as to why the reliefs were introduced in the first place and why they are being extended.

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