Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not intend to delay proceedings. I welcome the anti-avoidance measure in the Bill. It is appropriate to say that this is not the best way to legislate. The recommendation itself runs to a number of pages, and it is always better to scrutinise such things in committee, to have the appropriate time to do so, although I acknowledge there is no time limit at this point, and to have those staged phases of being able to consider legislation on Second, Committee and Report Stages. That is not the case here but, that being said, the measure is welcome. I have raised this through parliamentary questions and in the House as the Bill was going through. An increase in the rate of commercial stamp duty is something we called for, and I welcome the fact that the Government has moved to increase it. We are mindful that commercial properties were at the heart of the construction collapse and the banking collapse. Despite many people thinking it was a housing problem, it was very much a commercial one. Therefore, we as a State need to be very mindful when we see an overheating market or such signs beginning to emerge in respect of commercial property. When the stamp duty rate was increased from 2% to 6%, it gave that incentive for companies to involve themselves in avoidance schemes. This was also flagged by Davy Stockbrokers. It flagged that this was likely to happen, and real estate investment trusts, REITs, were mentioned in this regard.

I welcome the recommendation and I have no issues with it. I also welcome the briefing note. We were quite considerably aggrieved and displeased by the fact that we were being notified of amendments but were not receiving the relevant briefing notes. A comprehensive briefing note was provided to us, which was very helpful and which speeds the whole process up. I hope this practice will continue, and I thank the Minister's officials for same.

Another matter I wish to raise concerns the costs. We are aware that the four-percentage-point increase from 2% to 6% is estimated by the Government to raise €376 million. I will not rehearse all the issues again. We have serious doubts about this. I raised on budget night the validity of this, how robust these costs will be and what the amount of money will be. Will we see that level of transactions? There is serious doubt in this regard. What is alarming to me is that we found out from the Revenue Commissioners yesterday that there was no engagement between the Department and Revenue to ascertain the figure of €376 million. Revenue informed the committee yesterday that this was simply taken from the Revenue ready reckoner. The ready reckoner is a fantastic tool and is there to inform us, but given we were dealing with budgetary matters, particularly one that will raise €376 million, a telephone call should have been made to Revenue to ask it, given the caveats in the legislation, its estimation of the amount of revenue that would come in from this measure. I am deeply surprised that this did not happen. It only adds to my concern that we may see a hole emerge in the budget because of this measure.

The last thing I will say concerns the anti-avoidance scheme. Given there is now more of an incentive for people to avoid paying the 6% commercial stamp duty, I ask the Minister that if Revenue identifies such schemes and they are brought to his attention, they be brought to the attention of the finance spokespersons of the Opposition as well in order that we move quickly and speedily to close down any kinds of avoidance schemes that may emerge.

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