Charlie McCreevy (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

It is not. Some of the reliefs have been in place for over 20 years and it is time to bring them to an end. Those who benefit from focused tax reliefs are high income earners. We produced a report for the Revenue Commissioners indicating that a survey of such earners suggested that some paid only X% of tax while some paid none. That is the downside but the desired economic activity would not have occurred only for them. Those who benefit most from such economic activity are high income earners.