Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Everything was going well with Deputy Doherty's contribution until he made the point that he had not been expecting me to introduce the amendment and that my word that I would undertake this report would have been enough. However, I have decided to introduce it because we need to crystallise and understand this issue. There has been much debate in recent months on the role of such a tax. I decided that, in light of the ongoing debate, it would be helpful to lay out the various issues that could be involved.

To clarify for the House, and as the nature of my contributions on Committee Stage bore out, I am not committing to the introduction of this tax. Rather, I am committing to scoping out all of the matters that the Department of Finance, the Oireachtas and I would need to be aware of before a tax like this could be introduced. I am not committing to the principle of it because, before I can commit to the principle of any form of taxation, I must be able to answer basic questions on how it would work. What are we taxing? What do we believe the effects of the tax would be? What do we believe the side-effects would be? Would it deliver against other objectives for that tax apart from raising revenue?

If these complexities were not dealt with, many of the Deputies who support the principle of this tax would be, within moments of their constituency offices being contacted by people who have been disadvantaged by this tax in a particular circumstance, some clear examples of which Deputy Fitzmaurice has just given, condemning me for being either callous or incompetent for implementing a tax that created the kinds of difficulties that they would be gripped by shortly after the introduction of such a measure.

For all of these reasons, I have decided to propose this amendment to lay out the various issues that would need to be addressed. I have done so because a number of Deputies who have been calling for this measure to be introduced do so without taking account of all of the complexities and unintended consequences that could be created by introducing this tax. It is in that spirit that a measure like this would be a helpful contribution, if not even a vital one, to the debate on such a policy across 2018.

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