Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 15, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following:

“Report on key employee engagement programme

11. Within 6 months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall produce a report on the implementation of the key employee engagement programme.”.

I have very little to say on this amendment other than that it has not been a particularly effective scheme. There are better ways to support SMEs. If the idea is that when shares become valuable the Government gives tax breaks for those shares, that is doing it the wrong way around but it is not really working in any event in terms of the benefits that have arisen. This is the wrong way to encourage or promote small and medium enterprise and it suffers from some of the same flaws as other tax reliefs the Government provides on the basis of either high earnings or profit. The Minister is well aware of my opinions on those reliefs. It is on that basis we should rethink this and scrap this scheme but I will not labour point.

See this speech in context