Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I welcomed this section of the Bill on Second Stage. It brings a long overdue measure of transparency to these types of financial instruments. I presume the Minister has in mind, particularly, contracts for difference which comprise such a surprisingly high volume of transactions on the Stock Exchange. Reading interesting profiles of some of our leading developers over recent days, one finds some of them had significant resort to the use of contracts for difference over recent years.

I address this section in order to query the Minister. There was a modicum of controversy in the House recently about the Taoiseach who, as Minister for Finance, decided against the imposition of a tax on this instrument. What is the up-to-date view on that issue and on the use of CFDs in any case? Presumably they do not preoccupy the Department this week and will not next week but nonetheless I am interested to know what is the view. Does the Minister acknowledge, in retrospect, that if a modest imposition had been imposed at that time it might well have played a role in putting out the fire? It was not imposed. Other than requiring transparency in future and that the market and the regulator should be advised, this section does not do much more than that. It is purely a requirement to be transparent but does not comment one way or another beyond that concerning the desirability of this type of instrument and the extent to which it was resorted to in the recent past.

See this speech in context