Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To tell the Minister the God's honest truth, this is about as clear as mud. He is amending an amendment to the section in the consolidated Act which was brought in on Committee Stage. The amendment to section 19 of the Finance Bill was that this section would only apply to interest paid on or after 19 October 2017. The significance of this amendment is that it does not include just interest but also other distributions payable. There is a responsibility on the Minister for Finance to outline the purpose of section 19, the addition of "other distribution payable" and what it means and how it applies, as the Minister states, to the issue of retrospection. This issue is not clear to us.

No briefing note was circulated. For years we have been dealing with this type of situation where technical amendments have been tabled by the Minister for Finance. Every single year, I have asked, as a matter of course, that the speaking note the Minister is happy to put on the public record in a Dáil debate would be circulated to Deputies in order that we could speed up this process. If we knew in detail what this was about, perhaps we would not have any difficulty with it. However, I cannot stand here and support this amendment after the Minister noted on the public record that this is about retrospection while not being clear about what the amendment specifically means, how it interacts with section 19 of the Finance Bill and how it concerns retrospection. We know that many will try to gain the system by wrapping property up in companies and the value of the shares. This is a big issue but it does not just relate to this matter. We will visit it again when we deal with stamp duty issues. However, I cannot support this amendment if the Minister does not give us a clear explanation of what exactly he is trying to achieve.

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