Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 44:

In page 96, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following:

"Amendment of section 125(B) of the Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999

75. Section 125(B) of the Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999 is amended by substituting the following for subsection (3):"(3) A stamp duty of an amount equal to 0.075 per cent of the chargeable amount for 2015 shall be charged on every statement delivered by a chargeable person pursuant to subsection (2).".".

I tried to submit this and other amendments on Committee Stage, but unfortunately the Ceann Comhairle's office would not accept any of them because of a technicality, which was deeply frustrating. I do not expect the Government is going to make any move on this. In fact, I do not believe any of the Report Stage amendments will be accepted.

This amendment relates to the pension levy. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, made a promise to the pension industry which it took at face value but he then broke that promise. He said that the pension levy would be abolished within a timeframe that was shorter than that for which it had been in existence, but it is still in place and causing many problems in the pensions industry. We face a serious challenge over the next few years in terms of private and public sector pensions. We are starting to see the collapse of private and semi-State pensions, as happened in relation to Aer Lingus. There is a great deal more of this to come.

Public pensions, which I mentioned yesterday in this Chamber, are not safe either. The ratio of workers to pensioners is moving from 5.5:1 to 2:1. By the time we get to 2:1, based on the fact that public sector pensions are funded out of current taxation, there will not be enough workers to fund them. People who are currently clocking up public sector pensions and hoping to retire in 20 or 30 years need to think about this too because there are not going to be enough workers to pay their pensions.

Part of the problem is the private pension sector and what the Government has done and continues to do every year in this area. Essentially, the Government is taking people's assets. What it is doing is the equivalent of reaching into everybody's deposit accounts and taking money out of them every year. It is not a tax on the profits or the yield from the pension fund every year, rather it is a grab on the actual amount within it. That is no different from reaching into people's current bank accounts and taking their money out. The fact that the levy is still in place is as damaging as its introduction because the pensions industry no longer believes this Government.

This amendment seeks to signal clearly to the industry that the pension levy is being phased out. It seeks not that it be eradicated in the first year but that what is currently provided for is halved, with the intention of it being fully eliminated the following year. As I said earlier, I do not expect the Government to accept this amendment but it is worth making the point that the Government's behaviour and, in particular, the behaviour of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, in terms of his having broken his promise to the pensions industry has caused an awful lot of damage and should be recognised.

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