David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House. I found his speech very interesting but before I turn to it I would like to say that I may support the Government's amendment. Although the Labour Party has made very serious points, it has gone in the direction of a particular ethos rather than any particular party. I do not know of any Government under which there has been the kind of aggressive attack upon private tax defaulters that the Labour party seems to think is deficient and a deficiency of this Government. I do not wish to be part of this on this occasion. The Government is fairly strong in going in the right direction and in the direction that the Labour party seems to wish for.

The Minister said there is no policy to protect the well-off from the rigours of the law. There may not be a policy but that is certainly the effect. Nobody could be in any doubt about this. Wealthy people are protected both in the courts and in terms of their tax provisions and the banks. The bigger the crook, the bigger the write-off he or she will get. A small person gets squashed and trampled. We all know this is true; there is no argument about it. There could be no argument from either side of the House. I disagree with the Labour Party in that I do not think this is a specific policy of this Government. I believe the responsibility lies elsewhere, perhaps in the past. The history of the Revenue Commissioners may play a part in it. I do not want to see people hounded into prison, particularly people on relatively low incomes. The Revenue Commissioners is a beast that is feared in many quarters but also treated with disrespect by others.

I do not believe there is a policy to protect these people but it is a fact and part of our ethos. I remember when tax evasion was not regarded as a sin in the Catholic Church. A person who had evaded income tax did not have to confess it. I have some nationalist friends who are delighted to boast to me about the amounts they defrauded from the Revenue Commissioners. There was no feeling of civic responsibility in this country and we must understand this. We are now at a path where something needs to be done about it. A friend who is a senior and well-advised political commentator said to me very recently that he felt that there should be what he described as "stench marking" in addition to benchmarking because of the awful aroma of corruption that floats around so much of our life in this country. We are sliding down internationally on the corruption index, which is most regrettable. All of us should stand together to try to do something about this.

The tribunals, of which we have had approximately 12, are a good indicator. So far, these tribunals have cost €200 million and that is before third party costs are paid. The total cost will probably be €1 billion. This is the extent of what is going on in this country. The Exchequer seems to be awash with money and everyone is trying to get their fingers into it in one way or another. I have before me an economic report which looks at the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Comptroller and Auditor General talks about the West Link bridge where €2 million disappeared and nobody seemed to bother about it. There is information in the report about the computer system in the Department of Health and Children and how the Prison Service abandoned a €500,000 computer service because it did not like the way it operated. I heard some time ago on the radio about a situation where a road service was faulty and had to be redone. A steamroller had to be brought in and the entire cost of re-tarmacking that section of road was €50,000. However, the authorities were billed €3 million and they paid up. This is the kind of ethos that we have and should address.

The report I have is very interesting because it is not partisan and does not come from any particular political party. It is a kind of business report. It says, "there is a stark contrast in the way the State pursues social welfare fraud, compared with tax fraud". I am not saying it is Government policy but it is a fact and is noticed by the business community independently. The amounts are also quite disproportionate. I have before me a table of prosecutions from the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Table 53 deals with criminal cases forwarded to the Chief State Solicitor and lists them under the headings of unemployment assistance, unemployment benefit, disability benefit, one parent family payment, other schemes, offences committed by employers and so on. In 2004, there were 476 and there were 355 in 2003. The amounts involved were €1,116,492. In other words, the amount was just over €1 million and there was a marginal rise from the previous year. If one looks at the other aspect of this, the special investigations, the money which was deliberately and systematically defrauded by big interests and big private investors is €2 billion and nobody has gone, or will go, to prison. By contrast, the small people, those at the margins of society, have been prosecuted and 36 of them have been sent to prison.