Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is always a cost to introducing tax subsidies. We see the ongoing subvention of the hospitality sector through the reduced VAT rate, which has cost several hundred million euro over the past five years. There is always a cost to the Exchequer when a subsidy is introduced. It is not only good practice, but it is good government and good governance to require the Minister of the day to provide a rationale for the continuation of an intervention of this nature. As I said earlier, our corporation tax rate is under serious scrutiny internationally and nationally. We should have no difficulty with that. I have repeatedly rejected people claiming this country is a tax haven; it is not. People pay tax here on goods produced here and so on. That may be an argument for another day.

I am very excited by this development, which will really benefit the country through job creation and the development of a very vibrant start-up sector. It will address one of those missing pieces, which is our performance in the private sector, at the very least in terms of research and development for companies with a small number of employees. I do not understand why somebody would have a difficulty with ongoing reviews of the scheme. It is good practice to justify the expenditure to this Chamber and to the Dáil.

It is important to have transparency in tax. It is not just a case of ensuring that people will benefit from the incentive and the job creation that flows from that, but it is also about trying to convince people of the merits of a scheme like this. I cannot understand the ongoing opposition to a very simple requirement for the Minister to provide this report - maybe it is not appropriate for such a provision to be written into primary legislation. However - I think this is what I think Senator Higgins is saying - if the Minister accepts the requirement to report to the Houses and she provides a report of some nature each year on the performance of the scheme, that would do the Minister some service, do the House some service and ensure the type of transparency the public demands on incentives such as this. I fully support the scheme.

As a Minister of State sitting at Cabinet, I was involved with the then Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, in helping to design this scheme. While we should be proud of it, we should spend a little time considering the transparency element.