Mary Henry (Independent)

On Second Stage I spoke about the importance of the changes in the tax relief schemes which would benefit high income earners. I agree with the attempts being made by the Minister to have high income earners improve their own situation by these schemes, but he recognised in his reply last night that they will also affect philanthropy. While the universities, the National Gallery, some hospitals and other institutions have benefited from very generous contributions from high income earners, we will not be in the same position after 2007 to have similar benefits from people who earn over €250,000 annually. That would probably seem a lot of money to most of us here, but is not so to many wealthy people in the country.

We have been encouraged within the universities to look at the American model whereby funds are raised from private sources and we have been quite successful in this at home and abroad. However, this initiative will affect us. In his reply the Minister said it was essential these tax relief schemes were looked at across the board, but he also said he would look at the area of philanthropy. Before this section of the Bill comes into play in 2007, I hope the Minister will see some way in which he could remove the provisions which will seriously affect our powers of fund-raising in the universities.

I had always thought we would be able to raise a great deal of money from our alumni, perhaps €1,000 from each of them on occasion, but this has not been so. We have had to rely much more on very generous, rich people to give us money. We will be seriously affected by the Finance Bill measure, as will our next-door neighbours in the National Gallery and some hospitals too. I hope that before 2007 the Minister will see some way in which this section could be ameliorated — the best word I can think of — so that what the Government is promoting on the one hand will not be spancelled on the other hand by making it impossible to get money from these people who have been so generous to us in the past.