I propose to take Questions Nos. 469 and 478 together.
Generally speaking, the tax system treats members of cohabiting couples as separate and unconnected individuals. Each partner is a separate entity for tax purposes and credits and bands and reliefs cannot be transferred from one partner to the other. There are no special favourable tax arrangements for cohabiting couples with dependent children.
The Working Group Examining the Treatment of Married, Cohabiting and One-Parent Families under the Tax and Social Welfare Codes, which reported in August 1999, was sympathetic, in principle, to changes in the tax legislation to address the issues raised relating to cohabiting couples and reported that the options that it set out should be considered further. However, it acknowledged in relation to the tax treatment of cohabiting couples that a key issue is whether tax law should proceed ahead of changes in the general law.
Various developments in this general area include:
the consultation paper on the rights and duties of cohabitees which was published by the Law Reform Commission in April 2004;
the Tenth Progress Report of the Oireachtas All-Party Committee on the Constitution entitled ‘The Family' which was recently published earlier this year;
the establishment by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform of a working group to examine the area of civil partnerships and to prepare options on the various legislative choices available to the Government for action in this area. The Group has been requested to report by 20 October 2006.
I previously put on the record of the House that I would view as problematic and unwise a situation where changes in the tax code relating to the treatment of couples would set a headline in advance of developments in other relevant areas of public policy, for example, in the area of legal recognition of relationships other than married relationships. I remain of that view.