Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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110. To ask the Minister for Finance following his commitment to do so, the progress he has made on examining the equality-proofing of future budgets. [23963/13]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Following my commitment to direct one of my political advisers to look at the Scottish model during the Finance Bill debate on March 6th 2013, preliminary research has been undertaken. I feel it is important to highlight to the Deputy that at present the Scottish Budgetary system has limited powers in relation to revenue-raising measures. Accordingly, the Scottish Equality Statement is primarily an impact assessment on Government spending. Mr. John Swinney MSP, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, sets out in his introduction to the Equality Statement that he commends it “as a tool to assist with the scrutiny of our spending decisions (...) and as a commentary on the equality impact of our spending plans (...)”. The Equality Statement does not deal with revenue or taxation measures and as such the scope to provide a detailed analysis of the Scottish model is limited. Any issues relating to the allocation of spending resources and its impacts are matters for my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, to deal with in the first instance.

I feel it is important to highlight the progressive nature of the Irish taxation system when discussing matters of equality. Ireland has been consistently assessed highly by the OECD for the progressivity of our taxation system. In the OECD rating system on the progressivity of taxation, where less than 100 is regressive and above 100 is progressive, most EU countries had a progressivity rate of between 120 and 140. Ireland, in comparison, had a progressivity rate of 182.