Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

I raise an issue which will inform the debate I hope we will have soon on the report of the Commission on Taxation. In 2001, a family based near Cashel, in Tipperary, a mother and her two children, was involved in an horrific traffic accident in which the mother was left with 5% of her sight, her young five year old daughter completely paralysed and her other son badly injured, although thankfully he has recovered in the interim. That family sought to avail of the use of an apparatus called a Lokomat machine of which there is only one in the country located in the NRB facility in Dún Laoghaire. They were not allowed gain access to the machine for any considerable period of time to ensure the appropriate therapy could be given to this young girl who was completely paralysed.

Rather than taking what I would call that neglect lying down, they sought to examine how they could acquire such a machine and set up a properly constituted charity based in the mid-west to try to do that. They liaised with the company in Switzerland that supplies the machine and through fund-raising events raised €300,000 to buy the machine. Not alone have they bought the machine and put it in place but they have made it available to any other family in a similar position who wants to avail of this valuable therapy.

The insensitive approach taken ultimately by the Department of Finance but at first by the Revenue Commissioners to impose a €60,000 VAT bill on that charity is indefensible. I worked at the helm of a charity that cares for special needs children for six years and I always found it galling that we had to pay back a huge amount of the money we raised, and we raised every cent we needed to run our charity through fund-raising events without any support from the Government, to the Government in VAT.

I ask the Leader and his colleagues who hail from southern and western areas to examine this incidence of a very unfair VAT bill being applied to this charity and this family. They are now considering the option of having to raise an additional €60,000 to pay for this machine. They should not be asked to do that. The bill should be waived immediately. Also, I ask the Leader if we can explore the issue of VAT being applied to charities that should not have to pay it and cannot afford to pay it in these stringent times.