Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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11. To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to ensure all workers receive equality under any tax credit-relief for water charges. [41740/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, a number of measures were announced on Budget day to improve the overall affordability of water charges. The objective of these supports is to assist households in the country who pay their Water bills.

Following on from the announcement on Budget day, officials from my Department are working closely with their colleagues in the other relevant Departments and Agencies, in the development of the processes that will be employed to deliver the relief.

As I stated on Budget day and subsequently, we will design the measure as broadly and efficiently as possible, to ensure that the relief reaches all households who pay their charges.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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12. To ask the Minister for Finance the reason he is proposing to extend tax breaks to very high earners through an extension of the SARP scheme. [41744/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, my officials conducted a review of the Special Assignee Relief Programme in advance of this year's Budget. The review analysed aspects of the scheme such as the background and rationale for the programme and data available from the Revenue Commissioners including the cost and take-up of the programme. In addition, a public consultation was held. A report was written on the review and this has been published on the Budget website.

Having considered the outcome of the review and Ireland's need to attract FDI, I have decided to:

- extend and enhance SARP for a further three years until the end of 2017;

- The upper salary threshold is being removed to encourage senior decision makers to come to Ireland;

- The residency requirement has been amended to only Irish residency. This was proving to be a barrier to individuals in their year of arrival into Ireland, and also for individuals from countries where they are deemed to be permanently tax resident; and

- The requirement to have been employed abroad by the same employer for 12 months prior to being assigned to Ireland has been reduced to 6 months in order to align with recent changes to employment permit legislation.

I believe these measures are a positive step forward as part of a range of measures, forming the Roadmap to secure Ireland's place as a destination for the best and most successful companies in the world.

The Deputy will be aware that this Government is committed to job creation. A key part of this focus is to attract FDI into Ireland, and in order to support and drive this job creation, it is important that Ireland can attract and retain the decision makers and senior executives who make such investment decisions. I believe that this measure will help to create jobs and support the export led recovery in the economy by maintaining Ireland's competitiveness for attracting FDI and the subsequent job creation that follows investments of this type.