Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We dealt with this in detail on Committee Stage. The Minister was unable to be there but the Minister of State stepped in for him. The Minister will know that I welcomed the provision on Second Stage because we were conscious of the Commission's view. It is appropriate that we, in this House, take the relevant actions instead of others forcing our hand to do so.

The Minister spoke about a scheme, regardless of where it is. My track record speaks for itself when it comes to schemes involved in tax avoidance or tax evasion. He also said that if there are scenarios, then we should unwind them. The problem is Revenue has given all these schemes a clean bill of health until now. Why would somebody unwind something that Revenue has said is completely legitimate until now? If Revenue decides to carry out a review and believes a sector has been over-compensated, I presume at that stage, once the sector has been informed that Revenue holds a different view subject to a review, it will take action.

The Minister mentioned that Revenue would allow the sector sufficient time to reorganise itself after a review had been completed. Will he elaborate on that? It may not just be a case of unwinding mechanisms, which is at the core of this. As the Minister mentioned, dismantling a type of model may be easy enough but the difficulty is if the model confers a financial benefit on the sector. If we dismantle it, we take away the financial benefit. Will the sector be sustainable afterwards?

The Minister's earlier contribution suggested that a review would be carried out in the second quarter of 2017 and there will be engagement with the sector to give it ample time to adjust. Therefore, I presume the Minister will not consider orders until 2018, if an order is required. I would like him to make it clear whether sustainability of the sector will be a factor in this. We are very aware that some of this is heavily concentrated in Border communities and that Brexit will have an impact. There is a need for us to support the agricultural sector while at the same time ensuring no additional benefit is conferred on it by the tax code, which was never intended. It is time for this but it needs to be a bit clearer in terms of when Revenue will complete its review and the associated timeframe. The clock will start ticking when a particular sector is first told, despite what has been said beforehand, that it needs to change practices or models engaged in heretofore.

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