Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

To be honest, I do not fully understand it, but I am not satisfied that the Minister has made a case for section 110 in general. His main argument seems to be that there are 38,000 jobs in the IFSC and that, therefore, we should not worry about people such as those in Matheson telling investors to get into the area of aircraft leasing and use section 110 to ensure they will pay no tax. To me, that is a big problem, but the Minister justifies it on the basis of some jobs being created.

To help us to judge these matters properly, we need to know exactly how many people were employed, for example, in aircraft leasing companies in each of the years since this provision was introduced, how much profit was generated in the area in each of those years and how much tax was forgone as a result of the use of section 110. Then we will be able to judge whether it is a beneficial tax break in the sector or the others to which section 110 applies or just another way for the super rich to make a lot of money and use the IFSC and the tax code as a tax haven. We need that information to make judgments on these matters. I would like to see that information. I know that the Minister does not have the answers in front of him, but I would like to see the facts in order that we can break this down, understand it and see if there really is any benefit or whether it is just another big tax scam. However, to me, it stinks to high heaven.

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