Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I wish to share time with Deputy Mary White.

I welcome the chance to comment on the Finance Bill which was framed and delivered in an incredibly difficult international environment. I refer in particular to the United States where titans of the US such as GM and Ford are going to Congress begging for their survival and to the UK where an extraordinary budget was introduced this week and where short-term populist measures have been taken with the promise of an upturn and the threat of a long-term payback. It seems we may have to re-invent the English language to come up with words for the amount of debt outstanding in all those economies. The EU is today announcing its own programme for regeneration.

The Finance Bill is specific in its measures for supporting enterprise, combined with the increased provision for county and city enterprise boards announced in the budget. Many of them are doing excellent work in promoting small companies by helping them to start up and guiding them through the difficult initial years. The Bill provides further measures which are to be welcomed. The provision whereby new companies will see full relief where their total corporation tax liability in any of the first three accounting periods does not exceed €40,000, is particularly welcome. This will be a comfort to companies when they are in the early stages of development.

The increase in the rate of tax credit for incremental expenditure undertaken by a company on qualifying research and development from 20% to 25%, is necessary as we try to position ourselves in the knowledge economy and move our industries from traditional to new. I have met companies around the country, many of whom came to Ireland to do a specific job. They have re-engineered themselves by means of retraining and research and development and without losing employees. They now do something completely different. This is one of the stories that has been lost in the current climate. The number of such companies was reflected in the IDA survey. Companies came to Ireland to do a specific job perhaps 20 or 30 years ago and through investment and because of the talent of their workforce they now have a different work function and they are still in Ireland. The provision on research and development is to be welcomed.

The budget provided support to start-up companies with a provision whereby new companies will get full relief. The budget has also made some provisions for first-time buyers. We cannot tar the entire construction industry with the same brush. There are many small builders who operated their businesses decently and honourably over the past ten years. Tarring them all with the developer brush is unfair to those who built houses in response to the demand and did not behave like the big city-based developers.

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