Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The point I make is that the job of a governance mechanism at any time must be to see where the objective or foreseeable benefits are not flowing. One makes the changes necessary to stop a practice which was not envisaged when the arrangements were initially put in place. As far as its introduction was concerned, it was a bona fide provision, and once it became clear from the Revenue investigation that there was another use of ARFs, not envisaged when support was given to their introduction, we sought changes, and I am making the changes in a transparent way.

Senator Terry made a point about the lump sum figure. That figure emerged from the Revenue investigation rather than from the Indecon report. Those compiling the report made reference to it, which is when it came to our attention. Confidentiality rules apply to Revenue in terms of not being able to move beyond that. When the Revenue was compiling a list in order to see how they were operating, it came across two instances where the tax-free lump sum was of the order of €25 million. We have now brought in a limit of €1.25 million, so the Government has acted on the basis of what has emerged.