Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Minister for Finance was in London on St. Patrick's Day telling the assembled gathering that the Government would crack down on crony-capitalism in Ireland. The Labour Party warmly welcomes that. There are certainly a few cronies on whom one could crack down. We have Mr. Fitzpatrick, who is known to his cronies as Seanie; Mr. Fingleton, known to his cronies as Fingers; and now a Green crony, Mr. McCaughey, who, of course, has legally avoided the payment of capital gains tax by the convenient means of transferring the shares to his spouse who then transferred herself to Italy for the best part of a year to qualify as a tax exile. I want to ask the Taoiseach a couple of questions arising from these.

On Mr. Fingleton, like Deputy Kenny, I was surprised at the statement which has just been issued by the Minister for Finance which effectively states that the Minister will take a month to investigate what remuneration was paid to Mr. Fingleton. It is already in the public domain that Mr. Fingleton paid himself a bonus of €1 million after the guarantee scheme came into effect. Taxpayers who await the worst of news on budget day, which is less than a month away, will want to know whether the Government will recoup that and how such a bonus could be paid after the guarantee scheme came into effect when we were told the Government had given itself very considerable powers to exercise control on these institutions.

What Mr. McCaughey did was perfectly legal; that is the problem. Can the Taoiseach give some assurance to the taxpayers of the country, who are likely to be hit with further tax increases in the budget, that this arrangement concerning tax exiles will be ended once and for all? People are scandalised that this type of arrangement can be entered into, that if one is wealthy enough and has good accountants one can get around tax liabilities while PAYE workers and businesses which are trying to keep going have no escape.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, who appointed Mr. McCaughey as chairman of the Dublin Docklands Authority, said he is "one of our most successful green entrepreneurs and in the past decade has shown clear leadership on issues including regulatory reform [and] sustainable business practices". Does the Minister still have confidence in Mr. McCaughey as chairman on the Dublin Docklands Authority?

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