Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Potentially, the Minister of State has made the case for amending the section rather than not commencing it. He has not made the case for taxing income between March and August other than the narrative that the Government said it would do it. In my five or six years as a Senator I have heard a great deal said by Ministers, some of which has not happened, but some of which has.

We are not simply talking about the Revenue code although the Minister of State talked at great length about it. Nobody has argued against the move from Schedule D to Schedule E or the taxability of income since August. That is not the case. It would be a misrepresentation of the arguments being made to suggest that that is what is being sought. People are looking for solutions for the Minister of State. We are on Committee Stage. Perhaps the Minister of State is correct that an amendment would be a better way to address it that would capture the nuance so that we ensure we do move all the payments since August into Schedule E rather than Schedule D, Case IV.

The key point remains that it was in the social welfare legislation that the decision was made in terms of where this was placed. There has been much commentary and rhetoric around what the Minister of State said or what was said in the Chamber. I regularly argue for tax. I am looking at this legislatively as somebody who is often arguing for tax. I am in favour, in general, of taxation but I am not in favour of it being retrospectively applied. We have multiple cases where, for example, Ministers have spoken about unforeseen loopholes in regard to corporation tax and they were not panning out as planned even when that was well signalled. I am thinking, for example, about capital gains tax, how the capital gains tax waiver was above, and I am thinking of some of the schemes in regard to real estate investment trusts, REITs and so on.However, I have never yet seen a Minister refer back and say "This was not doing what we thought it would do and our intention was clear when we spoke". In fact, in any case where there has been anything remotely resembling a tax gap, a potential relief, an allowance or a loophole in the case of some corporations that could be exploited, it has been left until it has been fixed legislatively.

This is not an argument against the urgency of the payment. It was the right thing to do and I supported it. Members of the last Seanad came to the House from our various election campaigns for the Seanad to pass that legislation. I did and still applaud the State for introducing an urgent payment. It was worth it for what it did in keeping our economy and society together. It was a social cohesion measure which has been praised. That was worth it, as will be forgoing two or three months extra payments, which will be very small although we have not heard the amount it will gain. It will be very significant on a family and household but not significant for the State. That is also worth it. I am not saying the Government should not have done it this or that way but that it did the right thing by introducing a payment quickly.

As Senator Sherlock said, we would have allowed for it to be properly put in another location, if the Minister of State wished, but that was not the choice. That is not what we are criticising. We are saying that legislatively, in terms of the placing of this payment in the social welfare code, the basis the Minister of State has been citing and the description he has given are based on the legislation that was introduced on 5 August. We should deal with the period from 5 August to now and should regard the other as it was, an exceptional needs payment which came from that relevant part of the social welfare code, the part which Senator Gavan has cited that contains such payments. We should be very glad of it and what it did for households and we should continue in the same spirit of understanding that the resilience of households is the resilience of our State.