Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

It would be good to have all these ideas subjected to a cost-benefit analysis and from that point of view I welcome the proposal. However, I would be wary of the development of terms such as "intellectual trading losses" which is quite broad. I would be somewhat concerned that people with imagination who design tax schemes might be excessively imaginative. We need to be cautious and restrained when we extend definitions in taxation law because of the law of unintended consequences. There appears to be all-party agreement across the floor of the House that as far as possible we should in future have a baseline system of analysing, evaluating, costing and time-basing particular proposals. If we could achieve that it would mean considerable change in the structure of how entities such as the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners approach the collection of information, and the analysis and presentation of data.

The Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service has had the opportunity to meet Commissioner Rehn, Mr. Watson and Mr. Regling, who are all firmly wedded to the notion of the European semester. As I understand it, a basic proposition of that is that in the near future Ireland will be required to do what is done in many other parliaments, which is essentially to prepare, publish and have debated in April of each year outline budget and capital spending proposals, including taxation proposals. Inevitably that will mean, particularly for the public service, a very big shift in the demands that are made. Regarding renegotiating the interest rates on the loans, in Europe there is broadly a conception that Ireland got a poor deal from the IMF-EU deal. We are being charged 3 percentage penalty points on the interest particularly on the euro and ECB parts of the loan. If the country is to be able to meet the burden it is essential that they are renegotiated, reopened and reconsidered, which will require considerable diplomatic finesse and effort. The quid pro quo will be that this semesterisation and bringing forward of economic information will come much earlier than we have been used to in the Irish system.

Every party represented here this morning is indicating a different approach because we will need to be very tough with Europe in saying that Irish people cannot take the burden. Equally from what I have heard of the debate today, there is initial broad agreement among all the parties that we will prepare much more detailed information with more cost-benefit analysis. That is a really important reform and the EU and IMF should be aware that there is a strong appetite for reform here, which is essential if we are to get people back to work and turn around the economy.

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