Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, the tax debt warehousing scheme is a really good scheme when compared to the interest rates that apply, for example, to other tax debt. Non-warehoused tax debt has a general interest rate of 10% or 8% in the case of income tax underpayments. That just puts in context that this is a really good scheme.

We do have to be fair to all of those who did not avail of tax debt warehousing. More than €30 billion of taxes could have come within the scope of the warehousing scheme and approximately 10% of those responsible for it availed of it, amounting to €3 billion. We need to be conscious of that. I understand that this is a very important issue for many businesses. In terms of the breakdown, which we provided in response to written parliamentary questions in the past, the sector with the largest number of businesses availing of warehousing is construction, not hospitality, with just under 9,200 customers availing of the tax debt warehousing regime, followed by the wholesale and retail trade sector with 8,600.

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