Second-home tax loophole
Senator Gilroy welcomes the Finance Minister’s intention to close a tax exemption for Ministers’ second homes, while criticising inflammatory political comparisons.
Section 836 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 provides for a Minister to be exempt from certain charges relating to the necessity of maintaining a second home in the course of his or her duties. I commend the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, for indicating that he will move quickly to close this obscure loophole. Yesterday in the other House Deputy Pearse Doherty of Sinn Féin described this section as "sickening". Perhaps the Leader might ask Sinn Féin whether it was sickening that the body of a disappeared person had turned up in a bog in County Meath after 30 years. Words like "sickening" should be reserved for such circumstances. As Members of Sinn Féin are apologists for the murderers of the young man in question, they might be a little more circumspect in their parliamentary language.