Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

If the Minister is to boast about his Government's achievements it is important to note that the abuse of pensions for tax purposes was consciously slipped into the Dáil by then Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, around 2000. If the Minister examines his officials' report he will see that in 2000 Mr. McCreevy removed practically all limitations on pension investments for tax purposes. He significantly widened what could be invested in. The Minister's report shows that until then the numbers and amounts in small, self-administered pension schemes were relatively modest, as one might imagine, because only a relatively confined group of people, generally senior company executives or proprietary directors, could avail of them. Once Mr. McCreevy opened the floodgates in 2000, all the worst abuses that we have highlighted happened. The Minister's officials' report shows the amount of money in those funds rose very quickly to over €1 billion within a short time in approximately 2,200 special funds.

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