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File photo: Photocall Ireland

Noonan: VAT rate for restaurants likely to rise

The Finance Minister said the reduction of the 13.5 per cent rate for the hospitality sector had always been a short-term “pump priming” measure.

FINANCE MINISTER MICHAEL Noonan has indicated that the nine per cent rate in VAT for the hospitality sector is likely to be increased in the upcoming Budget.

The tax was reduced from 13.5 per cent in 2011 in a bid to kick-start the sector, and lobby groups have been piling pressure on the Government in recent weeks to have the lower rate retained.

However, speaking in Limerick today, Minister Noonan said the measure had always been planned as a “pump priming exercise” which was intended to be temporary. He added:

The people in the Department of Finance and in Revenue have built its restoration into the Budget.

In very simple language if I don’t bring it back I have to find something like €360 million elsewhere.

The Restaurants Association of Ireland launched a campaign earlier this month insisting the rate needed to be kept low in 2014 “and beyond in order for the Irish economy to remain competitive”.

The representative group said that employment in the restaurant and tourism sector had increased by around 9,000 since the cut was brought in.

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    Mute Jonathan O'Riordan
    Favourite Jonathan O'Riordan
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    Nov 8th 2021, 10:35 AM

    Brave man- all compounded byBoris misspeak some years ago

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    Mute Marie Broomfield
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    Nov 8th 2021, 11:22 AM

    Tough time. 5 years are up. Is she getting released ?

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    Mute The only INFP in Ireland
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    Nov 8th 2021, 11:53 AM

    @Marie Broomfield: Just as the 5 years were up, she was handed a new 1 year sentence for protesting at the Iranian embassy in London in 2009. It’s never going to end either unless the British government do what needs to be done

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    Mute John Quill
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    Nov 8th 2021, 7:08 PM

    Eat and save your strength, Boris would as soon leave you starve to death.

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