Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Restrictions on the amount of the capital sums, as regards BES, came as a surprise. One of the problems for small to medium sized business, SMEs, is the lack of capitalisation. I do not know whether it is a matter of the capital a company will get or whether the Minister is more attracted by the personal tax relief for investors, but I was struck by the fact that he included recycling under the BES heading and there were references to environmentally efficient projects. There is a category of people in Ireland who do installations of various products that lead either to reduced carbon usage or improvements in relation to areas such as solar heating systems, wind energy and so on. However, the scheme as it is designed cuts out a number of people who have been working in this area but still fall outside its remit. I find this surprising because the key issue for these small and medium-sized businesses is for them to get a great deal more capital in order to grow.

The Minister will appreciate that administration costs for BES charged by firms of accountants and solicitors who sell them are extremely high. It is akin to insurance products in this country. The cost of many of the tax-based schemes in terms of the middlemen, accountants, tax lawyers and so on who provide them, are very high. I wonder what type of survey the Minister did. Even the chambers of commerce were rather surprised by what he introduced. Rather than seeking to grow the capital fund, he seemed to dwell more on the personal tax attractiveness of the schemes he put forward for people who might be investing. As we did not have an opportunity on Committee Stage, perhaps this is an opportunity for the House to explore the Minister's thinking in this regard and for him to explain who precisely he was targeting. I meet a good many business people involved in the provision and installation of more efficient and new types of energy services. As far as I can make out, however, they seem to be outside the remit of this scheme. I am interested in the Minister's comments.

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