Derek McDowell (Labour)

Let me avoid further culs-de-sac. I want to spend most of my time speaking about what I consider to be the guts of the Bill, which is the manner in which it deals with capital allowances and the special reliefs and incentives that have been in place, in some cases, for 30 or 40 years.

The reports published by the Minister made for fascinating reading. I compliment the Minister for having commissioned the reports and I also compliment those who compiled them. I am sure anyone who has read them will agree that the content, presentation and standard of the internally-produced Department of Finance report was at least as good as the one for which we obviously paid a lot of money to Goodbodys and Indecon. We might bear that in mind in future.