John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to concentrate on a couple of points raised by the Minister. He mentioned the test case and we are all in agreement on that as the way forward in the hope of finding a resolution. He also said there would be no demands until the test case is concluded. I was contacted by a shareholder yesterday. I put a question to Mr. Phelan from the Revenue Commissioners when he attended the finance committee on whether there would be any consequences such as the issuing of tax clearance certificates for previous years and we were assured there would not be. The individual who contacted me yesterday was due a VAT repayment of more than €2,000 but it was not paid. The only explanation he could find was that it was put against the money the Revenue Commissioners claim he owes on the preference share issue. That seems to go completely against what was outlined at the meeting, despite an assurance from Mr. Phelan that the issue would be dealt with separately.

Issues arose in the previous ten minutes about vulture funds not paying tax and treating people unfairly. We are talking in this case about compliant taxpayers, and we must defend them and treat them fairly. This is not right and we need to address the issue. I accept what the Minister for Finance said about the issue requiring to be addressed independently of him but we must also have some control.

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