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

There are very serious principles underlying this scheme and it indicates a view within the Department of Finance and the IDA which is fundamentally wrong. There are skills shortages right across the economy but we do not offer sweetheart deals to other categories of staff. I have a real concern about this and cannot see any justification for it. I also have a concern about the complete lack of proper oversight of this scheme. I asked about it recently but the most up to date figures that the Department could produce were for 2016. This reminds me of the lack of data on the big pension funds that are getting huge tax reliefs and which are costing the State millions of euro every year. Why does the Minister not have information on how much this scheme is currently costing us? What is the projected cost of the scheme for 2019? This seems to be a secret kind of arrangement organised through the IDA on which we do not get any data. The Minister must come clean on this. We cannot have a situation where we have one law for the rich and another for the poor.

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