Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to Deputy Boyd Barrett's point initially. I appreciate the difficulty when there is a large change such as this but we debated this at length on Committee Stage. We debated the operation of funds and the benefits of funds as collective asset investment vehicles in which people could make investments where they could previously not do so and thus take advantage of the larger purchasing and investment power one gets through a fund, or the expertise that might exist within the fund. One can look at the benefits we have achieved as a State through fund investment in this country, such as the investment there has been in infrastructure and our economy. It has been very important to us in taking us out of the recession we were in.

The Deputy approaches this with a particular ideology which does not favour investment in property or profits being made on investments. He talked about the public ownership of most State assets. There is a fundamental difference in terms of how we approach the operation of the economy. It is very difficult to try to get to a similar basis when it comes to issues like these around the funds when we have that basic disagreement. We discussed this at length on Committee Stage in so far as why we have a funds industry, the importance it plays not only in terms of investments into the Irish economy but for the international financial services sector where high-end jobs are being created - which are taxed at a high level bringing money into the Exchequer - in the managing and administering of those funds through this country into other parts of the world. It is a very important part of what we have in terms of our offering in international financial services and it is also an important part in terms of what our strategy is in a post-Brexit environment. We spoke at length about the operation of funds in general.

What section 22 attempts to do, and again we spoke about this at length on Committee Stage, and I appreciate the difficulty around this because it is a technical area and we are adjusting to that with amendments and bringing in new areas-----

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