Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am taking it that she did not raise any objections. The truth of the matter is that these payments were not taxable until the Government changed the law in November of last year. Since then, in the early weeks of this year, people who were not expecting them have been receiving tax bills of up to €1,400. This is a retrospective measure. People who received the PUP as an urgent need payment in the early part of this pandemic had every right to expect that it would not be taxed. I find it ironic that in the week following the revelation that Irish billionaires have increased their wealth by €3.3 billion, the Government has not found a way retrospectively to tax high and mega-wealthy earners within our society. There has been no proposal to tax vulture funds, cuckoo funds or banks, which are, in essence, exempt from paying tax for the next 20 years. The Minister will have to agree that there are double standards at play. I take this opportunity to appeal to her to use her offices to ditch the taxation on the payments that were made under the PUP scheme up to 5 August last year.

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