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

I move amendment No. 10:

In page 20, between lines 28 and 29, to insert the following:

"Reports

16.Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay a report before the Dáil, on the abolition of the Special Assignee Relief Programme on tax justice grounds.".

Not too long ago, I was listening to the radio in the morning and heard the Minister for Health talking about the question of subsidising antigen testing. He said there are very sharp limits on what the Government can do in this regard. In the end, as we all know, it did not subsidise the tests whatsoever. The Minister said to the interviewer: "We have limited funds at our disposal. If we go further than I am indicating here on your radio show, it will come out of the budget for paying nurses." It is not the first time we have heard this kind of argument. There are scarce resources, which means one deserving group cannot have its demands satisfied because another deserving group will lose out. Of course, this argument ignores the fact there are very large amounts of wealth in this society. It is in the hands of a very small minority, whom the Government refuses to go after.

This is a good example of that. We are talking about a tax break for foreign executives who earn anything between €75,000 and €1 million per annum. Of course, if we give a tax break to foreign executives, or any such privileged group, other people will pay for it. How much will the taxpayer pay? We are not quite sure because we do not have the up to date figures. We know that in 2016 this tax break for foreign executives cost €18.1 million. We know that for 2018, the last year for which we have figures, the figure more than doubled to €42.4 million.

The Minister for Health goes on the radio to say we cannot subsidise antigen tests without taking money from nurses and a thousand other similar types of arguments are used by Ministers day in day out, but the reality is that foreign executives in this country have a tax break paid for by taxpayers to the tune of €40 million, and rising. We would love to put forward a proposal that the tax break be abolished, but we do not have the power to do that. The most we can do is ask that a report be laid before the House within three months. That is what the amendment states.

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