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

I outlined the rationale as to why I am making this move on Committee Stage. I thank Deputies Fitzpatrick, O'Keeffe, Aindrias Moynihan, Troy and Butler for the points they have brought in at this point.

There a couple of points I would make. Every decision that I make, particularly in taxation, has consequences, and I have no doubt at all that if I had followed any of the other suggestions that have been put to me, and Deputy Pearse Doherty outlined a number of them, each of those would also have had consequences that would have been raised in the Chamber. There is no taxation decision I can make that does not have consequences in some part of our economy.

This betting duty is at 1%. It is at the lowest level it has been since 2006 and I ask colleagues to reflect as to whether we have any other levies or taxes that have not changed since that point given the kind of change that has happened since, where all parts of our economy and all forms of enterprise were asked to contribute more in response to the significant difficulty that we were in. Given the situation we are in now and the objective that I understand is shared by all Deputies who have spoken, or at least by their parties, of trying to broaden our tax base and find ways to make tax revenue more sustainable, surely we should be looking at the appropriate level of tax contribution that different businesses can make. I repeat that this is a levy that is nearly unique, out of all forms of contributions that different areas of our economy have made, in not changing at all for more than 12 years.

The Deputies are right. Some of them have made the point that I have acknowledged that there are consequences for this decision, as I have acknowledged for every other tax change I have stood over. The challenge I face, which is shared by some of the Deputies but is unique to me, is that I have to try to make decisions on the basis of information that is available to me, conscious that every decision I make can have negative consequences in certain parts of our economy. I have to try to calibrate that level of consequence. I stand fully over the decision I have made to date and I am standing over it in this Finance Bill. We need to be asking different areas of our economy to make contributions to the funding of public services. All parties here, at this point, have advocated the need for this sector to make more of a contribution, and I assure them that, for any of the different options they would put forward, they would face similar considerations to those I face today.

On the particular issue Deputy Michael McGrath has put to me, I have indicated on Committee Stage that I will keep this measure under review to see what impact it has in the sector across 2019. The challenge I face in considering the Deputy's amendment is that the deadline he places on it is to lay a report within the first 12 weeks of this measure being implemented. The specific challenge for that proposal is that the betting liability itself, the duty liability, does not fall to be paid until on or before 15 April. It is paid after the quarter. What I am happy to do, as I would do with any measure, is to look at the implementation across next year, especially when we get information from tax about it, and I will engage constructively with the sector on the proposals that are put forward.

When measures such as the proposals that are now being put to me, whether relating to a levy to be paid by the punter, the person pressing the wager, or relating to the gross profits tax, were looked at before, many different voices also had issues about them. I am happy to look at the implementation of this measure or the effect of this measure, particularly when we have information as we move through next year, but I am not in a position to accept the amendments that have been tabled.

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