Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have been working on this since 12 October, and we are nearly there. The Minister, Deputy Donohoe and I spent 19.5 hours on this section on Report Stage in the Lower House.

This is the first balanced budget in a decade. That is quite an achievement considering the era we have come through, which has been difficult and pretty awful for many. People get going and kept working; they kept trading in the most difficult circumstances and I thank all of those people. We expect there will be more leeway in next year's budget and we may be able to do more. At its lowest point in 2011 or 2012, our income tax take was €11 billion. In budget 2018, the expectation is that we will bring in €21.5 billion. That is the major readjustment.

We do not apologise Senator Conway-Walsh for giving people on low or middle income a small amount of money back via USC and the widening of the tax bands. Some €400 millon was given back. We must now bring our tax rates, some of which were emergency rates, back into line with normal practice. Stamp duty is one of the rates we are increasing from the emergency period - what I describe as the war time period - from 2% back to 6%. People say it is a trebling of the rate and it is but 2% was not a normal rate. Stamp duty used to be 6% and had been as high as 9% or 11%. We also examined and considered changing other rates on this occasion but decided against it, such as the VAT rate at 9% potentially going back to 13.5%. The latter is the normal rate and we will return to it at some stage. That is a figure of €491 million tax foregone. We decided it was in the best interests of the State because we hear Senators talking about rural and regional Ireland. That is exactly why we decided to leave those rates as they were.

I want to be clear to Senator Higgins. Make no mistake, every measure involving tax foregone is analysed with deep scrutiny. Perhaps I took the Senator up incorrectly but I thought she was a little glib in that we were not really analysing this. Every last red cent is analysed in very deep detail from top to bottom to ensure we are getting the best potential value.

If someone chooses to leave this State and become tax resident elsewhere that is a matter for him or her. I want to place on the record that corporation tax will be close to €8 billion. It is our third highest tax head. We are very clearly collecting it all. I have made the point before in the House that people have quoted the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report of a few months ago about, I think, 11 companies which pay zero. That is the correct rate because we have tax arrangements with other jurisdictions and with companies which participate and pay the tax in their country. In the same way Irish companies pay the correct tax rate. They are trading in other jurisdictions and pay the tax rate here.In those other countries that they are trading in the correct rate is zero but, because of our double taxation agreements where companies do not pay tax twice on the same activity, they pay the correct rate. Everybody wants to quote the Comptroller and Auditor General's report but they choose to ignore the next page which outlines those facts. One should not do that because it is misleading. It is a misrepresentation of companies which are paying the correct rates of tax in the countries where they choose to operate.

I thank all of the Senators. I thank the Members who participated in the Chair. I thank all of the officials in the Department of Finance. We have nearly finished in the Dáil. I believe there is a small period tomorrow night in which we will take the Bill. We finish here now.

I never question anybody's bona fides. We have disagreements but I appreciate and accept that everybody is acting in the best interests as he or she sees fit.