Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

I accept what the Leader of the House stated regarding some of these tax reliefs. It is difficult to generalise but some of these schemes have been allowed continue long beyond their usefulness to the economy. Some of them are useful and as the Minister would have realised over the course of recent weeks, there is a great input into certain sections of society as a result of these tax reliefs but they must be targeted at every part of the country to maximise the social as well as the economic benefit.

An issue arises if a relief is stopped retrospectively. In the period since the budget contact was made with me by people who wanted to invest in business expansion schemes in the future. There was a concern that if the Minister cut reliefs now unilaterally, it would stop people investing in BES schemes in the future because they might feel the next Minister for Finance might do something similar. There is a concern that we must be careful about the way we handle these reliefs but we must also be careful because some of these reliefs were clearly abused and have no discernible input to the economy. I accept the Minister must give a good deal of thought to the way he will handle this measure.