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

The point is that we need to know. I have given the wider argument. When it comes to the budget, we need to know, and that is what these amendments seek. Whether one agrees or disagrees, there is merit in saying we need to know how much money is forgone. Choices are made in budgets, and we will have to decide whether €50 million, €100 million or whatever should be forgone through this mechanism, along with all the other mechanisms. We need to know about the other mechanisms too, such as the €30 billion of tax loopholes per year given away to these corporations, but that is another day's work. We are dealing with this new tax loophole the Government is proposing.

These amendments propose that the relevant committee should scrutinise this measure and that we need information provided prior to the budget as to how much revenue is forgone so that when we vote on the budget, we can say we would rather that €50 million, €100 million, €20 million or whatever it may be go into the universities or second level education or whatever. It seems to me at a very minimum a reasonable thing to ask, that we be allowed monitor this, that the public be made aware and that we be allowed debate whether these tax breaks are actually beneficial for society and the economy as a whole or if they just benefit the select few who have done so well out of the already extensive, myriad tax loopholes from which big corporations have benefited.

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