This article is from page 26 of the 2008-12-16 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 26 JPG
FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan has dashed hopes that the Govern- ment may abandon its new air travel tax stating that the air sector already has preferential treatment.
In response to a series of Dail ques- tions on the new €10 tax, the minis- ter said he has tried to be as fair as possible in looking at areas for ad- ditional tax revenues. He said that fuel used by commercial airlines was
completely exempt from tax, so it al- ready had considerable preferential treatment. He said the new air travel tax will come into force from March 30 next year
“Ireland is not unique in regard to applying a tax on air travel. A number of countries within the EU apply similar taxes including the UK, France and the Netherlands, as do Australia and New Zealand. The proposed rates for the Irish air travel tax are not unreasonable both for
shorter and longer journeys, when compared to rates in other countries.
“It should be recognised that tour- ists will only be subject to the tax on their return journey. The additional €10 or €2 in the context of a much larger purchasing decision involv- ing travel, hotel expenditures etc. shouldn’t have much of an effect on tourist numbers.
“I appreciate the airline industry continues to go through a difficult period. However, this difficult trad-
ing period has, in addition to weak world economic activity, been largely driven by a massive spike in oil pric- es. Oil prices have now halved from the all-time high prices experienced earlier in the year.”
On his recent visit to Shannon, Ryanair chief executive, Michael O’Leary described the new air travel tax “as an amazingly stupid and re- gressive measure’.
“By all means have €10 taxes in Dublin, but you are not going to
be able to support traffic at Knock, Shannon and Kerry with €10 flat tax particularly during winter. We don’t Oppose a visitor tax over the short term in principle, somewhere some- how we all are going to have to pay a little bit more tax.”
However, Mr O’Leary said that it 1s fundamentally wrong that a person flying business class paying €3,000 – €4,000 paying €10 tax and an or- dinary Joe paying the same out of Shannon.