Vol. 492 No. 2
58 Mr. Farrelly asked the Minister for Finance if he will request the European Commission to carry out an impact study on the effect of abolishing duty free sales after 1999; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13500/98]
69 Mr. Noonan asked the Minister for Finance the further action, if any, he will take to reverse the 1991 decision to abolish duty free sales; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13638/98]
79 Mr. Gilmore asked the Minister for Finance if he will make a statement on his recent efforts to secure the continuation of duty free facilities and, particularly, the outcome of the meeting of EU Finance Ministers which considered this issue in May 1998. [13569/98]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 58, 69 and 79 together.
At my specific request the issue of the abolition of duty free and tax free sales was placed on the agenda for the ECOFIN meeting on 19 May 1998. At that meeting, I referred to the report, commissioned by my Department and undertaken by KPMG management consultants. It was not possible to get the EU Commission to agree to carry out a community wide study into the economic and social effects of the abolition of duty free and tax free sales, post 30 June 1999. Neither was there agreement among member states that such a study was warranted. Some member states, notably Spain, France, Greece and Germany were broadly supportive however.
As I said at my press conference following the ECOFIN meeting, it is important that interest groups in all member states should continue to lobby their Ministers to help change attitudes.
We will also continue to try to change attitudes in other member states on this subject.
