Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Tax is a matter for the Department of Finance but the Minister sits at the Cabinet table, where a proposal came to tax a payment for which the Minister is responsible. She is the Minister for Social Protection. How are these workers being protected with the plans to tax them in the new year?

In fact, it is a retrospective tax because when it was introduced, on 13 March, it came in as an urgent needs payment. Urgent needs payments are explicitly exempt from tax under section 126 of the Taxes Consolidation Act. It is was only on 5 August that the PUP was put on a statutory basis. Yet, for the period between 13 March and 5 August, the PUP is to be taxed. This is retrospective taxation.

It is an extraordinary decision. As the Minister charged with protecting people in this vulnerable position, how did she allow that to go through at Cabinet level when the proposal came from the Department of Finance?

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