Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 89: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs his views on whether such reforms of the international monetary system, as a foreign policy principle, as would allow for the establishment of a transaction tax, such as the Tobin tax, so as to contain or eliminate the destructive anti-democratic consequences of speculation in international debt and currency. [13352/10]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The question of introducing any tax measures is primarily a matter for the Minister for Finance.

From a foreign policy perspective, I would not exclude that taxation measures might have a role to play in regulating international financial markets, alongside other international instruments.

As the Deputy will be aware, there were calls at the G20 Summit in St Andrews last November for a global financial levy or an insurance fee to be implemented by all the world's financial centres, in consideration of the need to reflect the global responsibilities of financial institutions to society. While this was not agreed at the meeting, the G-20 leaders have tasked the IMF to prepare a report in time for their June 2010 meeting laying out a range of options as to how the financial sector could make a fair and substantial contribution toward paying for any burdens associated with government interventions to repair the banking system.

The European Council in December 2009 emphasised the importance of renewing the economic and social contract between financial institutions and the society they serve and of ensuring that the public is protected from risk.