Maria Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming in to discuss this all-important Bill. The first item I wish to highlight in it is the BIK adjustments. People working for a company may have a car in the company's ownership and, therefore, I welcome that a further €10,000 is allocated under the Bill, especially for categories A to D. This is positive for encouraging people to change their vehicles and go electric. Many changes have been made, but we need to encourage people to continue to make that change as much as possible. The fact it will be backdated to January 2023 is most welcome.

I refer to the extension of the agri-tax reliefs. Many of them are in place already, including the young trained farmer relief, farm consolidation relief, farm restructuring relief, young trained farmer stock relief, registered farm partnership stock relief and the accelerated capital allowance relief for capital expenditure on slurry storage.It is my understanding that it will be phased out in 2024 and 2025. As the revised regulation came in in January 2023, it is positive that it will be in place for a substantial time because so many farms are being handed over to the next generation. It is important to put these benefits in place to encourage and make sure that farms continue to be farmed because it is part of our culture. All our families were farmers or from a farming background at some stage or other. This is most welcome. The conditions are contained in the Bill.

I welcome the extension of the 9% VAT rate on electricity and gas. More vulnerable and older people are receiving the €200 cost-of-living payment this Friday. That will help with their electricity and gas costs, along with the VAT rate being kept down until the end of October 2023. I am still concerned however especially for the more vulnerable people. For example, an older lady I met lately received a gas bill for €700. The lady lives on her own in a one-bedroom house with a sitting-room-cum-kitchen. This is huge money. When I made pleas to the utility company on her behalf, it eventually agreed to give her a refund because there had to be something wrong, even though the company checked the meter and looked at everything. For a person living on her own, on a basic social welfare pension, a bill for €700 is a huge amount.

In the context of tourism and hospitality, the fact the 9% VAT rate has been extended up to the end of August has helped to keep many businesses afloat. With the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, I met the representatives of 38 businesses in Limerick yesterday all of which were from different backgrounds and different spheres. They varied from a shoe shop to a bookseller to publicans. We met with a number of businesspeople from the hotel and hospitality sector who were grateful that the 9% VAT rate has been kept in place and that it is going to be extended. The businesses mentioned were butchers but I believe the hospitality industry would feed into that. They were greatly affected by Covid-19. It is important that this is being retained.

With regard to businesses and TBESS, the business owners we met yesterday were grateful for the scheme. Many applied who did not believe they would qualify or were told they would not qualify. The reduction in the threshold to 30% to be eligible for the scheme is to be reviewed. It is important to get a clear message out that those people do not need to reapply. However, we also need to get the message out to people who did not apply because they thought they would not qualify. It has to be a balancing act. The Minister and the Government listened at the time and said the way it was set up initially was prohibitive for businesses. Some people found it daunting and had to employ their accountants to fill out the forms because they were so complicated. They now do not need to apply for the reduction in the energy costs threshold from 50% to 30%. I want a clear message to go out about the zero VAT for antigen tests and solar panels. From speaking to many people, along with the Minister of State, in one month recently a credit union arranged €2.6 million in loans for green energy. This shows that people are taking green energy seriously. This reduction to zero VAT on solar panels is important.Some people were talking about the fact that VAT was making the solar panels that bit more expensive. We have to bring in ways of encouraging people to make that change and take green energy seriously. The Government has gone a long way to listening to domestic energy users, businesspeople and farmers. That is very important and is what drives the thrust of the changes in this Bill but I wish to highlight petrol and diesel costs. While they are down to relatively low levels, I still passed two petrol stations today between which there was a difference of 10 cent per litre. They were not too far away from one another. That is a considerable difference. I cannot understand how one of them can sell fuel at the lower price and other has not passed on that reduction. It needs to be monitored. We cannot tar everybody with the one brush, but such a difference is completely wrong and I wish to highlight it. Other than that, I thank the Minister of State and I look forward to supporting the Bill.