Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

They are given a €5,000 tax break to send their children to private schools. That is deeply unfair. It is a slap in the face to most ordinary taxpayers who are put to the pin of their collar to survive. Again, it is just a front to enable people to avoid paying their fair share of tax, as is the Government's attitude to corporation tax. The Social Democrats fully support the 12.5% corporation tax rate, but we should insist that companies actually pay that rate. The effective rate of tax should be close to 12.5%. There is potential to raise very significant additional funds by doing that.

Finally, I want to talk about another tax scam, which is the tax relief on big pension pots, which is gradually being scaled back. The year before last, however, we were promised by the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, that he would introduce restrictions on effective tax relief for private sector pensions so that nobody would be entitled to tax relief on pensions in excess of €60,000. That did not happen. There is potential there to raise an additional €120 million if the Government were to follow through on the promise it made in 2013.

The net effect of the failure to follow up on that promise is that Ministers and senior civil servants can continue to benefit from pensions of up to approximately €100,000, which is an exorbitant amount. These are people who made the rules to suit themselves. Fairness is needed but it has not been provided in the Finance Bill, which is ill-advised and lacks ambition and coherence. We could have done much better if the Government had taken a different approach.

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