I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for allowing me in. The Tánaiste would be surprised if I heard about the liveable cities and towns and potential economic benefits going to other areas and I did not take the opportunity to mention north Kildare and the need for regeneration of the towns in the context of the liveable cities. I am talking about liveable towns and how we can widen the scope of the scheme, which is obviously welcome. Last week, I spoke in the House about the housing Bill and the benefits of it. I referenced that when benefits are introduced, a lot of the time we see the small scale to the small towns and village and a significant amount of grant funding going rural communities. Often we see the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, and the living cities initiative funding going to these older towns to regenerate them. Often the towns that are missing out are those such as the Tánaiste's own town of Greystones, and Bray, Leixlip, Naas, Maynooth and Kilcock. How do we introduce a scheme that can benefit those towns in a similar way to the living cities initiative?
Sentiment score: 0.30
11. Deputy Joe Neville asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if his Department has considered increasing the domestic excise duty threshold for Irish brewers from the current 30,000 hl previously set at 20,000 hl prior to 2019; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [64556/25]
Sentiment score: 0.01
I welcome the Tánaiste here in his position as Minister for Finance and extend best wishes to him in his term ahead. My question is to ask the Minister for Finance if his Department has considered increasing the domestic excise duty threshold for Irish brewers from the current 30,000 hl, previously set at 20,000 hl prior to 2019, and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Sentiment score: 0.44
Like every other market, it is evolving continually. Microbreweries is an industry that really took off over the past number of years. It has grown really well but at the same has its own difficulties and considerations. There has been some contraction in the industry. There have been a lot of increases in costs which has caused difficulty for some of those breweries. The Tánaiste referenced breweries going together but ultimately there are individual businesses and breweries brewing on behalf of other companies and passing on to them. The problem is the person brewing it, when it has come through those customers, even though they are brewing on behalf of someone else, they can get caught in that. In the end, we might actually be restricting competition by not extending it.
Sentiment score: -0.12
I welcome the Tánaiste's response especially his view that we have to keep monitoring this. Like every industry, we need to support it as best we can. It can be a fundamentally Irish product and industry. We want to protect it, look after it and enable it to grow considering it has its own difficulties. We all know the difficulties these sort of industries face. We spoke about it earlier with the whiskey industry and a lot of brewers that export to the US but face difficulties in that regard. It is important and incumbent on us to continue to look at this and how we can support the industry. I welcome the opportunity to discuss this with the Tánaiste tonight. I will continue to liaise with him and his Department.
Sentiment score: 0.22
Deputy Ó Cearúil's reference to drudgery and repetitive tasks brought me back to my days in PricewaterhouseCoopers, where I started as an auditor. There were many repetitive tasks. Specifically on Future Forty, the Tánaiste's predecessor as Minister, Deputy Donohoe, put a very sensible budget in place. He was very anxious to ensure we would be left on safe ground for the future. Future Forty refers to corporation tax as something we cannot necessarily rely on and it also refers to broadening the tax base. Notwithstanding the sensible approach of the previous Minister, we really do need to focus on corporation tax to ensure we do not become overly reliant on it. As Deputy Ó Cearúil alluded to, we need to ensure the tax base is widened and not narrowed, as the Opposition continually seeks despite the fact that it talks about the need to increase spending on this and that. Then again, it never wants any taxes whatsoever to be raised. That is the dichotomy we have to deal with in this House. I just want to get the Tánaiste's views on it.
Sentiment score: 0.10