I welcome the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Deputy Harris, to the Chamber. Amendment No. 1 in the names of Senators Paul Daly and Pat Casey has been ruled out of order but I understand Senator Daly would like to speak on it.

There was a bit of a misunderstanding. It was down to the goodwill of the Tánaiste, and I thank him for his engagement. We spoke here the last day and he had to leave the Chamber. He told me he would deal with it today on Report Stage. With that in mind, rather than actually speaking on the amendment then, I said I was withdrawing it with a view to bringing it back today. Apparently, if it is not discussed, it cannot be brought back, but I appreciate the fact we have been given an opportunity to speak on it today. It is an amendment that the Tánaiste probably could not or would not want to accept anyway and it is something that probably cannot be changed in the Finance Bill. However, it is an anomaly and I want to highlight it. It is something we might get the wheels in motion on to find a workable solution for the people whom it affects.

It is about the issue with flat rate VAT and selling livestock in a mart. I am not going to try to explain to the Tánaiste how the flat rate VAT compensation works for farmers who are not registered. It is a complicated system, but in the budget it was reduced from 5.1% to 4.5%. There is also, however, a livestock rate of 4.8% which did not change. Now that the 4.5% rate is obviously lower than the 4.8% rate, if I as a non-registered farmer go to the mart and sell that animal for €1,000, forgetting about commissions and all that, I will bring home €997.14 as a flat rate, whereas if I sell that animal to the abattoir, the factory, and get the same €1,000 price, I will bring home the €1,000. That is because the 4.5% rate is now lower than the 4.8% rate. When it was 5.1%, I would have brought home more than €1,000. However, it is only when things go below that we hear from the lobbyists. The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society, ICOS, has been on to me. It represents 150,000 members and 130 co-operatives and marts which employ 12,000 people in the sector. The fear is that farmers will now will go directly to the abattoirs. We all know how important the local mart is to the local economy of the area where it is based.

The amendment was that the flat rate and the livestock rate would be brought together and equalised going forward. It is not something that could be done in this Bill but maybe it is something we could start out from today to achieve over a period of time. As the Tánaiste is aware, the flat rate is decided based on the macroeconomic data from the CSO and a decision is made by the Minister for Finance with Revenue. It is a similar process for the livestock rate. It is not a mad proposal that somebody would look at the potential of coupling them going forward.

It would avoid all anomalies going forward if the flat rate was equivalent to the livestock rate. It would need some research and work but when the macroeconomic data is being accumulated it should be done simultaneously. If equalisation needs to be introduced to one or the other to have them on a par, that might also be possible. I know the Minister would not have been able to accept the recommendation. I thank him for his interaction and I apologise to the Leas-Chathaoirleach for the confusion caused by the fact I did not discuss the recommendation on Committee Stage. I hope the Minister can give me a positive response and I thank him again for his engagement.

When is it proposed to take Fifth Stage?

Now.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I welcome the Minister and thank them for being here. It is no surprise to him or to the House that Sinn Féin will vote against the Finance Bill today, given that we have stringently opposed it at every opportunity on its passage through the Dáil and the Seanad. The Finance Bill is not about helping ordinary people, it is not designed to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis, and it will not put money in the pockets of the workers of the State. It will not deliver on housing, certainly not at the scale required or close to it. It is clear the Government's priority with the budget and the subsequent Finance Bill is about keeping the wealthy and letting everyone else struggle.

Sinn Féin tabled recommendations last week. All of them would have made ordinary people's lives better and all of them were voted down. We wanted to ensure the first €40,000 that anyone earned would be exempt from USC. That recommendation would have benefited people by up to €742, which would have made a real and tangible difference, particularly in the cost-of-living crisis, but the Government said "No". We tried to ensure that super wealthy workers earning between €125,000 and €1 million would not get additional tax breaks. Again, the Government said "No". We tried to steer the Government to a more realistic course in terms of tax breaks for research but, again, we were not listened to. The Government would not listen to us when we wanted to help poultry farmers either.

The Government is listening to a cohort for sure, and that is the developers and the bankers. In fact, the Finance Bill will herald a total of €2.5 billion in tax cuts for landlords, developers, investors and others. These are choices the Government will say will support the industry and infrastructure across the State but, budget after budget, homelessness rises and public services are reduced. This should be an absolute shame to the Government. The Government must take responsibility for the tens of thousands of working people for whom home ownership is now a pipe dream. Once again, the ordinary workers of the State carry the can for the expenses of the banks while the banks continue to enjoy their protected status in the Finance Bill.

In terms of the Finance Bill before us today, Sinn Féin rejects it. It will not do anything to ease the burden of hard-pressed citizens. It benefits the elite, the developers and the bankers, and it is the wrong focus from the Government. We in Sinn Féin will vote against it.

In the absence of our finance spokesperson, Senator Joe O'Reilly, I will speak on behalf of the Fine Gael side of the House. We will support the Finance Bill, which is based on supporting young people to buy their first house, ensuring we have a reduction in cost and more viability in the apartment sector by reducing VAT, ensuring we keep jobs across Ireland through a VAT cut for hospitality and hairdressing and ensuring the coffee shops that employ so many people throughout the country will continue to be viable in 2026.

I listened to the contribution from Sinn Féin and I have to say we do not agree with it on the basis that some of the recommendations it tabled, including an attempt to try to block the VAT cut for apartments, would ensure apartment building is more expensive. As was stated in the debate we had on Committee Stage of the Finance Bill, we have to be serious about ensuring that first-time buyers get access to much-needed homes. If we do not support the private sector to encourage house building, the reality is the State cannot build all of the houses we need. We must support the private sector to ensure we have house building. One of the key measures in this is ensuring viability for apartment blocks, which is so important in urban areas, such as here in Dublin and in our larger cities.

I also dispute the fact that Sinn Féin is in favour of jobs through foreign direct investment, as it states.

I do not see how voting against the Finance Bill, which contains key amendments to ensure viability in research and development and innovation and key measures to attract foreign direct investment, protects jobs, including the vital jobs that I see in businesses like Danone in Wexford, which employs so many people. Those jobs are a direct result of Government policy to incentivise foreign multinationals to come here and provide employment and tax revenue.

On Thursday, we will be debating the Appropriation Bill, which will see some of the largest increases ever delivered across key sectors, including tackling the cost of living with large increases targeted at the most vulnerable in society, as well as one of the most significant increases in disability services that the State has ever seen. That is so important and I would encourage Sinn Féin to support it on Thursday as part of the Appropriations Bill when it comes before the House.

Fine Gael is supporting this measure and will certainly be voting in favour of today's Finance Bill.

I thank Senators for their contributions. I will start with Senator Daly's recommendation. As he said, it was not procedurally in order but the point he was making was very much in order and I thank him for making it. I assure him that I have heard him and his views on the matter can be considered as part of the normal budgetary process for future years. I have asked my officials to consider this as part of the tax strategy group in advance of the budget. Every year, as Members will know, we have a tax strategy group that considers various issues, produces papers and makes recommendations. Perhaps this is something we could look at as part of that process. I would also be very happy to sit down with Senator Daly and other interested Senators. I know Senator Casey has an interest, as do many of my own party colleagues in Fine Gael. Perhaps we could sit down with ICOS, have a conversation and tease this through. What I will do now, for the benefit of the House because this is a technical area, is read into the record some initial feedback from the Department, which might help to inform those follow-up meetings that we can have in the weeks ahead.

The proposed recommendation, should it be tabled, would move the 4.8% rate currently applied to livestock in Ireland to 4.5%. This is the rate that is applied when livestock is sold by a VAT-registered business. As Senators will be aware, the farmers' flat rate addition will be reduced from 5.1% to 4.5% from 1 January of next year. The farmers' flat rate scheme is reviewed, as Senator Daly correctly said, each year in the run-up to the budget in accordance with criteria set down in the EU VAT directive. That rate is based on macroeconomic data relating to agricultural inputs and production and the prevailing VAT rate structures averaged over the preceding three years. Revenue's calculations, based on data from 2023 to 2025, indicate that full compensation can be achieved by decreasing the rate to 4.5%. As overcompensation is not permitted under EU law, the change must be introduced in line with the relevant macroeconomic data. Under the special scheme for farmers' flat rate, a farmer, on supplying agricultural produce or services to a VAT-registered business, is entitled to receive from that person, in addition to the amount payable for the supplies, an additional amount known as the flat-rate addition. The business making this payment, be it a meat processor, a cattle mart or another VAT-registered business, can claim a deduction in its VAT return in respect of the amount of the flat-rate addition payable to the flat-rate farmer. This is then subject to the normal rules in relation to reclaiming VAT. When a VAT-registered business makes its VAT returns, the inputs and outputs are calculated and where a business has paid more VAT than it received, its VAT return will result in a refund from Revenue. Where a business receives more VAT than it pays, this will require payment to Revenue. As such, VAT is ultimately only paid by the final consumer and not by VAT-registered businesses. From the perspective of a business, VAT is a neutral tax.

There are two points that I would put out there for further discussion. First, what would the direct benefit be to the business when VAT is neutral from a business perspective because businesses can reclaim it? Second, while we will obviously take the views of the marts seriously and work our way through this together, the benefit of linking it to the flat rate might seem appealing when that flat rate is going down but what if it is going in the other direction? Could there actually be an unintended consequence? Do they want to link it in all circumstances? These are just two issues that I am putting out for discussion.

We have the tax strategy group, which can certainly tease through all of these issues in advance of the next budget. I would very much welcome an opportunity to engage with Government Senators and Senator Daly on this issue along with ICOS and anybody else who has an interest in it. I thank Senator Daly for drawing our attention to what is a serious issue and one that has been raised by people affected.

This is my first time to have an exchange with Senator Nicole Ryan.

It is good to formally meet her and, while we may not agree on some things, I wish her well in Seanad Éireann. When it comes to the budget, she and I frame the budget debate in very different ways. Senator Byrne has framed the budget and the Finance Bill. As I see it on behalf of my party and Government, we see this budget as being about trying to do things to protect jobs, stimulate the building of homes and keep our economy safe. When I think of the budget I think of the three nines: the 9% VAT rate on electricity, the 9% VAT rate on building new apartments and the 9% VAT rate on hospitality. If we did not take decisions in the Finance Bill - that is what we are voting on today - the 9% VAT rate on people's electricity bills would go back up. It is not a good situation when people's bills are far too high. We are making that reduction permanent, at least for a number of years, at a significant cost to the Exchequer, but it is absolutely the right thing to do. If we did not do a 9% VAT rate on apartments, the cost of building an apartment would be 4.5% higher than it is today. I have never built an apartment but we are already hearing from people who do build apartments and we are reading about it and indeed the Oireachtas housing committee heard the benefits of that in terms of projects that were viewed as unviable now being viewed as viable. Last week the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland issued a report which said that before the measures we have introduced to try and make apartments viable there were six categories of apartments and only two were viable. Five are now viable. We are doing this not for developers or for anyone other than the young people we hope will be able to buy or rent an apartment.

The 9% VAT rate on hospitality is about making sure businesses in the hospitality sector are viable too, and trying to reduce their costs. It is not an affordability measure; it is a measure to try to help keep the doors open and the jobs going. In many rural towns and villages that I, Senator Ryan and all other Senators visit, at every crossroad there might be a café, a restaurant or a rural pub serving lunch, and their business costs are too high. I gave a clear commitment to them during the election, as did others, that if we were back in government we were going to do this. We were going to get out of the annual cycle of whether the Government would reduce the VAT rate to 9% and all the speculation that goes on for weeks and all the energy businesses have to put in to trying to lobby the Government. We are going to provide clarity and certainty because businesses need that clarity and certainty. I have absolutely no doubt, from talking to coffee shop owners and restaurateurs across the country, particularly in rural regional Ireland, that this measure will help them sustain employment and literally keep the lights on and doors open. For a sector that employs approximately 150,000 people, and when we are seeing some softening in the labour force data, it is an appropriate thing to do.

We have taken a number of measures in relation to research and development. There is always a good debate to be had about how we can make them as effective as possible and I genuinely look forward to engaging with this House on that in the time ahead. Yes, many of the research and development measures we have taken benefit FDI. That is a really good thing. Particularly in a world where there is such a high level of geopolitical and geo-economic headwinds, we want to continue to make this country a really competitive place in which to invest and create jobs that all our constituents benefit from. Interestingly, approximately 89% of the applications - not the amount but the applications for the research and development tax credit - now come from Irish SMEs, which is really good. We need to do more to encourage Irish businesses to avail of that.

As for the old landlords chestnut, I see that in a very different way. It is very hard to have a rental market without landlords. I see measures to help small landlords as a good thing. We recently heard from the County and City Management Association, CCMA, how hard it is to get things like the housing assistance payment to get properties outside of Dublin in particular. It is hard in Dublin but it is harder outside it. When we tease through that, one of the reasons is the lack of small landlords. We cannot on the one hand say we need more rental properties and on the other demonise our landlords. We have to support people to continue to rent out homes and we have obviously taken a number of measures in terms of extending rent pressure zones, bans on no-fault evictions and the like, which are appropriate too.

This Bill also extends mortgage interest tax relief in its current form for another year and makes sure the help to buy scheme is available in respect of properties that are built under the reduced VAT rate. It also extends the living city initiative. I had a debate in the other House in relation to the latter. The living city initiative is a scheme on the tax side to try to help bring derelict and vacant properties back into use. It is being used in the cities and we are now extending it to a number of other areas, including Athlone, Drogheda, Dundalk, Letterkenny, Sligo and others listed in the national planning framework. That will make a real difference.

This budget needs to be seen, through the Finance Bill, in the round. It is instalment one of five. There will be four more budgets delivered in the lifetime of this Government. I am very conscious of the fact that we need to get back to a rhythm of a normal income tax packages in future budgets.

If we continue to keep our economy on the straight and narrow, continue to make sure that it is competitive and continue to be fiscally prudent, I believe we will be in a position to get back into that rhythm of being able to implement key commitments in the programme for Government around income tax and also other key areas around childcare.

I will make a final point on public services. By any objective measure and reading of this budget, we have made conscious decisions to very significantly increase our funding of public services. To take disability alone, hundreds of millions of euro more have gone into disability services, and rightly. I see school children in the Gallery. Capitation fees are being increased for every school in Ireland from next year as well. Extra funding is going directly into every primary school and every secondary school, and more funding is going into special education as well. We have a way to go on student fees but we are making a €500 permanent reduction. It will no longer be a question of "Will the Government, won't the Government?" before every budget. It is a permanent reduction. We are trying to build on that in the time ahead.

I look forward to all of the debates we will have. Those are just some of my responses.