Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I do not take issue with Financial Resolution No. 9. It is equitable that the figure is capped at a more reasonable amount than was the case up to now. For many of the reasons Deputy Shatter advanced, it is desirable that people in those circumstances ought to have some incentive to provide for themselves in terms of their pension rights.

It is interesting, though, that the Government has only decided to hit people who are earners or are self-employed in this category of people who would be making accelerated voluntary contributions, AVCs, and so on. There is an entirely separate facility in the tax code to allow, say, a director of a company to put a very substantial amount of money into a pension fund when he or she is nearing retirement. The company gets the benefit of a write-down of corporation tax and an amount of €250,000, or any figure one likes, can be put into the fund. Companies can be engineered to facilitate this practice, yet the Minister does not bother touching this area in any way, although there have been gross abuses. I would be very interested to hear what kind of cost to the Exchequer is estimated to result from the operation of that scheme, which is not touched. I am not taking issue with the changes made in this resolution but I would like to know the answer to this question.

The increase in DIRT is a mean, miserable imposition from what is now turning out to be a very mean, miserable and shocked Government. We had a lecture from the Taoiseach before he departed, something that used not to happen in the time of Mr. Haughey, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Bruton or Deputy Ahern. The Taoiseach's lecture concerned the 26% rate in the time of the rainbow Government. It would be just as relevant to this debate for me to tell the Tánaiste what happened when Seán McEntee was Minister for Finance. The important point is that during that time there was an exemption, a threshold before one came to be taxed. I assure the Tánaiste that before the Finance Bill goes through this House, the Government will be back with an exemption level for the 1% levy.

To remain on this issue, the Taoiseach's big point before he left the House was that there was a 26% standard rate in the time of the rainbow Government. This Government is now pushing DIRT up to 26%. Why is it doing this? This affects people who, by definition, paid tax before their money was put into some bank or building society. The Government, mysteriously, did not bother to collect it for a large number of years — I know a little about that, and the inquiry concerned yielded €1 billion for the Exchequer, which it took gratefully. Now the Government hikes up the rates to 23% and to 26%. I cannot understand how we can have such a flurry about a former Minister for Finance encouraging people to save, yet here people who have paid their income tax as due will be liable to an additional increase in this regard.

I do not take any issue with the motion on capital gains tax, except that I question the yield. I would like the Minister or the Tánaiste to tell me where the Government proposes to raise this €160 million. Was that the figure?

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