Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am pleased to have an opportunity of speaking on this series of amendments. It is quite a large group, covering amendments Nos. 1 to 38, but I will focus only on one or two points.

Deputy Burton referred to the tax break industry, and that is effectively what it is. At the IBEC annual forum in Tralee last year, it was stated that approximately €11 billion worth of tax reliefs are given to the private sector annually. That is an incredible amount. If we take out of this mortgage relief and so on, we are left with the three major areas of property, landlord and pension tax relief. All three of these are effectively out of control. Some people have collected enormous pension pots. We have heard that Mr. Fingleton, for example, has a pension pot of €28 million and that he may have organised tax relief on all of it. It is incredible that the man was getting all his millions virtually scot free. It is unacceptable that this has not been regulated until now.

It boggles the imagination to read, in the Minister's introductory speech on Second Stage, his comments on property-related tax expenditure. What was announced in the budget was that tax relief on such expenditure was to be abolished or substantially cut. Guess what the Government has decided now, in the intervening six weeks? The Minister stated that the provisions "will now be subject to a commencement provision which may only take effect in the next tax year following the preparation and publication of an economic impact assessment on the proposed changes". Imagine that. One would have thought that before putting it into the budget the Minister would have carried out an assessment of the proposal, which would be properly researched and published.

Having introduced the provision in the budget, the Minister now says he must do all the ground work. Where are we going? What he said was code for saying that the property tax relief industry got to him, and he has taken the provision out of the Finance Bill. What we thought was a substantial measure in December has now disappeared. What will happen now? The Minister, God help us, will not even be here another month, but he will do some research and produce a paper which will appear some time in the future. What is being proposed is outrageous.

This is the kind of thing that gives the Finance Bill a bad name - when vested interests get to the Minister in the period between the Budget Statement and the introduction of the Bill. We should be considering all property-related tax exemptions. I am not saying they should be abandoned, although by and large it is time to move away from them. Section 22 and section 23 property tax reliefs were part and parcel of the collapse of our economy and one of the reasons for the state the country is in. We should seriously consider phasing out such reliefs. A total of €11 billion is handed over by the taxpayer to various interests, largely in the form of pension-, landlord- and property-related incentives. It is not good enough. Until this is dealt with transparently, we are going nowhere. The proposed change by the Minister is a bad one, and I welcome the proposal by Deputy Burton to ensure we assess all such measures in the future so that if they do not provide decent value we can get rid of them.

There is a valuable proposal in the Finance Bill to introduce tax reliefs for improving energy efficiency in residential premises. That is very welcome. However, the total amount of relief available in a year for this is €30 million, which compares badly with the €11 billion in existing tax reliefs of various types. For a tax relief that will achieve something desirable and get some economic activity going in the building industry we are providing a measly €30 million, while we refrain from abolishing the reliefs that are going into the pockets of developers to make obscene profits. I find the Finance Bill to be obscene in this regard.

One issue that should be dealt with by the Bill is that of self-employed people who receive nothing if they lose their jobs. They are not entitled to normal social welfare payments and they have no pensions. For example, as spokesperson on transport, I am dealing with this problem as it pertains to taxi drivers. There are 27,000 taxi drivers in the State and, in the old days, they had the nest egg of the value of the taxi plate. That has disappeared. When they cease to drive their taxis, they will not have a penny for their retirement. There is no lump sum, there is nothing for them except what they might get from social welfare, which is difficult enough at present.

Taxi drivers are not the only ones facing this situation, even in the transport area. Self-employed hauliers also have no pensions. Is this not something that should be considered seriously by the Minister? Surely we should be bringing self-employed people into some kind of pension bond which would provide an incentive for them to contribute. We could use the National Pensions Reserve Fund as a mechanism to encourage something of this nature, rather than leaving such people high and dry.

Finally, I will say a word about bonuses. I was speaking, I believe, on the last day of the Dáil in December and the Minister for Finance was on the other side. The Minister for Finance said that he was going to introduce a 90% tax on all bonuses being received by the financial institutions that were subject to the banking guarantee. Those are the institutions, effectively, the State has bailed out and some of them are now nationalised. He further said, because we were discussing the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Bill, that he could not introduce it in that legislation, although that seemed the most relevant Bill to provide for it, as the notice was too short, but by God he was going to have his 90% tax on those bonuses in the coming year in the Finance Bill. Lo and behold, it has disappeared entirely, just like the snow we had in December. It no longer exists.

Deputies will recall we were discussing the €40 million in bonuses for AIB managers in December, that had just been announced. I understand that is due to be paid out next month. The Minister had his opportunity to act on that but he has not. Neither has he acted as regards any future bonuses. Unless the Minister comes clean and says these areas, which have the country driven mad, are rooted out then this Government and this legislation that have no credibility.

Serious issues arise in sections 1 to 38, inclusive, that need to be addressed and which should be amended in the opposite direction to that being proposed by the Minister. The Labour Party believes strongly that the areas of property tax breaks and bonuses, which have corrupted the banking sector, should be addressed in this Bill because they are live, demanding issues and have brought the country to its knees.

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