Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

I think I will go back to doing the usual stuff. The issues of Irish domicile and the €200,000 income levy the Minister wants to impose on those with Irish residency were raised in the Lower House. Someone who has a substantial batch of assets in this country and moves to another European country can avoid paying capital gains tax on it. However, someone residing abroad with substantial assets in Ireland will be hit with this tax. The point made by Deputy Seán Barrett in the Lower House was not to abolish this tax but to grant leeway to individuals in this position. They should not be treated in the same way as those who use the tax laws to avoid paying capital gains tax by moving from this jurisdiction to another. Rather than deliberately avoiding tax, these individuals have investments in Ireland and are considered to be Irish domiciled or are residing in another country. They are being hit by this levy and are treated in the same way as someone trying to avoid taxes. Perhaps the Minister can revisit this and allow for differentiation between these individuals given that they are interested in investing in this country and have no issue with paying some levy here. What does the Minister expect this levy to contribute? If individuals are living in another European country, the tax regimes that apply in both states may mean that not much will be gained from the measure.

Deputy Ring raised the issue of Westport House. The 80% windfall tax may have a detrimental effect on the possibility of developing Westport House as a heritage site and a tourist amenity in the west. This might have been an inconsequential effect of the windfall tax. The Minister did not pay much attention to it when he discussed it on Committee Stage and I wonder whether he has changed his mind or come up with substantial changes.

The Minister is aware of the mineralogical processors exemption from the carbon tax. He has been in contact with individuals who gave him a legal opinion on his reasoning for introducing this section of the Finance Bill. I am interested to know whether he has had an opportunity to examine the legal opinion and how he intends making amendments to the Finance Bill before we move to Committee Stage. There are ongoing concerns about the bio-fuel industry, even though I know the Minister has accepted a number of changes. The Minister will be making changes and I would like him to comment on the exemptions to bio-fuels. It seems that many of these bio-fuels were imported, which seems to go against the spirit of what the Minister was trying to achieve. Perhaps the Minister can explain how to focus the tax exemption so it works within the Irish economy.

All of us want to get rid of property-based tax relief but an issue has been raised about primary care centres and their future viability. Development of primary care centres has stopped, as with many large projects, because people are unsure of what the future holds. There is also the potential for existing primary care centres to fail. Primary care centres and teams are an integral part of Government health policy and of the health policy of nearly every political party in the Oireachtas. They are part of getting Government mental health policy, A Vision for Change, working because we are trying to undertake community mental health care at primary care team level and primary care centres are an integral part of this. This is different from the Government co-location plan which I strongly objected to because it was not the best way of using tax relief. I did not think it was going to improve the Irish health care service. The Government should have focused on getting efficiencies and reform at the public health care level first and then encouraged the private sector to work on its own. The policy was dangerous from the patient point of view and seriously flawed from the taxpayer point of view. However, primary care centres are different. We should get rid of tax reliefs on buildings but there is need to come up with innovative ideas to make primary care centres work and to continue their development over the next few years. This policy should have been driven harder over recent years. The centres work well where they are but development has stalled and we need to come up with a new idea to get this going.

The Finance Bill raises a problem about the availability of rental cars in the summer months. The industry has made the Minister aware of this problem. Some years ago, 26,000 cars were available to rent to tourists during the summer months. The industry estimates we need 18,000 cars but the concern is that only 12,000 will be available this summer. I am sure these figures have been provided to the Minister. If these figures represent the truth, it would be awful to think the tourism industry would be seriously compromised because of changes to the Finance Bill. If there is a shortage of rental cars, it pushes up the cost. If the lack of availability is made known to tourists, they may not travel. We must discuss this.

The Limerick regeneration project was addressed extensively on Committee Stage in the Lower House. Does the Minister have anything new to add? We can discuss this again on Committee Stage.

The Minister said he would announce the amount needed to continue the bailout of banks next week. Unfortunately, it seems we are going back to Europe to get a substantial amount of funding to carry this out. Perhaps the Minister cannot reveal the gross figure but can give some indication of how this will impact on the public finances. A number of weeks ago the Minister referred to budgeting projections for the next two years and failed to mention this figure, even though this will be the equivalent of running the Department of Health and Children. That is a substantial sum of money and I would like to see how that would fit in with the Finance Bill and how the budget will operate over the next few years.

I have two questions that relate to NAMA but are addressed in the Finance Bill. Up to 20% of hotels may be moved into the care of NAMA over the next few months. In some respects, that is indirect State aid to poorly functioning businesses. The banks are propping up these hotels to move them safely towards the cover of NAMA but this is having a knock-on effect on those hotels that are trying to make it on their own. It is difficult for them to compete against the hotels that will be moved into the care of NAMA and that are being shored up by the banks because when the banks are in receivership as they are now, they can to a degree keep their rates down. This can have the effect of closing down a hotel that might otherwise survive. There is, therefore, a need for the Minister to comment on the problem and address it quickly. This is not something that can be allowed to linger for months because not only will the hotels placed in the care of NAMA close but this may also happen to a number of others.

There is a need to reduce the number of hotel rooms within the hotel sector. We lost the run of ourselves because it is estimated that there are between 10,000 and 15,000 hotel rooms too many. There is no direction from the Government on the way this wind-down will occur. If the market is allowed to do it, it could end up closing down hotels that may have the potential to survive.

In regard to what is happening in NAMA, I have a second question I would like the Minister to address. This is an issue that has been raised with me by individuals who, to put it mildy, get pissed off when they read about developers-----