The purpose of this amendment is simple. It is to require the Minister to prepare a cost-benefit analysis of tax expenditures provided for by the Finance Acts, setting out the cost of tax foregone and the benefits in terms of job creation or otherwise. I remind the Minister that this is a promise introduced by his predecessor, Deputy Brian Cowen, as a result of the scandal of widespread tax avoidance and mitigation by very wealthy people in Irish society, by means of the use of property-based reliefs. This debate went on from approximately 2003 until special studies were commissioned and carried out, one by Indecon and another by the Department of Finance, into the property-based reliefs, pension reliefs and the newly emerging relief for investment in private hospitals. If there is a contributory factor to the build-up of the Celtic tiger bubble economy and the subsequent horrible collapse of the Celtic tiger, with the significant consequences for job losses, loss of fortune and loss of pensions by people all over the country, then these tax breaks and the refusal of Fianna Fáil to cost them but to simply give them to their favourite supporters, particularly those in the development and construction business, was a catastrophic error of historic proportions. It is one for which taxpayers will not easily forgive Fianna Fáil nor should they.

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