Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A review of the type I suggest would not delay the application to the European Union. My request is to carry out the review in advance of budget 2014. It is a scheme which has seen only 335 certificates issue since 2003. Any companies applying must have a clearance certificate from Enterprise Ireland. It is not a massive scheme. Its parent schemes have not worked and we do not know if this one is working. The Minister will have sufficient information by autumn 2013. I am not asking for bells and whistles. The scheme could play a part in getting people back to work.

We teased this issue out on Committee Stage. Not only should the Government have access to information, the Opposition should also have access to it. I ask the Minister to carry out an analysis on the strengths, weaknesses, deficiencies and possibilities of the investment incentive and seed capital scheme before 2014 in order that we can measure how best to deal with it in next year's finance Bill if the need arises. The Department carried out reviews of the film relief, but that is not the type of review we are talking about. The amount of tax forgone is nothing near that. It is a different type of review. I am not opposed to the scheme, but there is a problem with its parent schemes and there is potentially a problem with this scheme given the lack of knowledge about it.

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