Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Acting Chairman. I am obliged to him.

Regarding pensions, Deputy Bruton has no doubts about the answers. However, does he not want us to study and analyse these issues also? The national pensions review produced by the Pensions Board provides a good base for the consideration which the Government is giving to the overall pensions situation. However, that consideration is a work in progress. As the chief executive of the Pensions Board said of the review:

its detailed analysis and costing of the pension situation are at least as important as the recommendations and should continue to be used as a frame of reference going forward. The board understands that further decisions must be made in the context of employment interests, competitiveness and overall economic and social considerations.

The Pensions Board itself sees that its analysis and recommendations must be considered by Government in a wider context.

Deputy Boyle referred to the new biofuels scheme which is included in the Bill but implied that the provision was simply an enabling provision. Perhaps I can clarify that. The provision is subject to a commencement order but this approach is required because the scheme requires EU state aid approval. While this can take some months, I assure the Deputy that the process has commenced and exploratory discussions have taken place between my officials, officials of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and the European Commission.

The Deputy might wish to know that I have budgeted for excise relief of €20 million this year under the scheme, rising to €35 million next year and €50 million in each of the following three years. This relief scheme, when fully operational, is expected to support the use and production in Ireland of approximately 163 million litres of biofuels per year, which is 20 times the current level of biofuels that is excise-relieved.

I note what Deputy Naughten and others stated regarding the proposal in the Bill on automatic reporting to Revenue by banks and others. The provision is an enabling one and before the regulations are drafted there will be appropriate consultations, which will allow account to be taken of the points made by Deputies. There are differing views on this and we can have a useful discussion on this on Committee Stage.

Deputies Ardagh, Naughten and others referred to tax issues of interest to farmers. Under this Finance Bill, disposal of the single farm payment entitlement is exempted from stamp duty in its entirety. This entitlement will be regarded as an asset for capital gains tax and capital acquisitions tax retirement reliefs, which are very generous. The young trained farmers scheme is extended for another three years. This is a generous scheme which facilitates the transfer of land to young farmers by exempting the transfer from stamp duty.

Deputy Bruton referred to what he called the "collapse" of the expenditure review initiative. That is simply not the case. I informed the Deputy last November of the 54 expenditure reviews completed or under way in 2005 under the existing round of the expenditure review initiative, covering indicative total expenditure estimated at €3.8 billion. At that stage, 12 of the reviews had been completed, 14 had been quality assessed and were close to completion, seven were at quality assessment stage and 21 were ongoing. I will bring proposals to Government shortly for the approval of topics for review in 2006-08, to include the outstanding reviews carried forward from the previous round.

As regards the position of the Department of Health and Children and the OPW, I accepted the view of the expenditure review central steering committee that both bodies should be temporarily exempt from participation in the expenditure review initiative owing to the extensive reform programme being undergone in the case of the former and the demands of decentralisation in the case of the latter. Both bodies will be asked to carry out expenditure reviews under the 2006-08 round of the initiative.

On infrastructure, a statement was made that we have not brought forward decent projects to tackle the infrastructure deficit. It is clear that more than €43 billion will be available under the capital envelopes for 2006-10, more than €34 billion of which is for transport over the next ten years. This investment is making a real difference through better roads, better public transport, more houses and more child care places. In health and education too there has been real enhancement in services. I accept that value for money in expenditure must be a paramount objective. The multi-annual framework provides a much better way of having better planning and management of capital projects.

I thank Deputies for their attention to this important Bill and for their contributions. I look forward to Committee Stage when we can elucidate and detail some of the more important provisions highlighted on Second Stage.

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