Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

Money can be recovered through a weekly deduction from a person's social welfare payment.

Other Members have observed that it seems possible to evade tax if one is able to employ tax consultants and the best lawyers. The objective should be equity and consistency in the system, not revenge. Senator Mooney got carried away when he spoke about death sentences in the United States. That is nonsense. There must be equity in the way the State deals with both rich and poor and consistency in the manner in which fraudsters are penalised. This does not seem to the case at present. There is still a perception that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor and it is difficult to refute this when one observes what is happening in the different areas of Revenue and social welfare. Some €173 million in evaded tax can be written off by Revenue while 36 of those found guilty of social welfare fraud are imprisoned.