Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The original definition of "charitable purposes" dates from 1601 and 1634. It was established in law as long ago as 1891 that giving money for the advancement of education is a legitimate pursuit. Schools use the provision for a wide variety of reasons. For example, Sion Hill school in Blackrock had a magnificent 100-year old concert hall in need of refurbishment. It was not funded by the Department of Education and Science but, because of donations, it was able to proceed with the project and reopen last Saturday. Taking donations allowed it to qualify for an additional tax relief, thus affording greater benefits. This is a very topical example of a non-fee-paying school that was able to do very valuable work on a magnificent building and great asset by using the tax reliefs available. Since the relief is available to all schools, it would have been very unfair to deduct the amount from which the school benefited.

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