Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am asking why they both make the same point. Here is a reason for suggesting their presumption is misplaced. They say it in two lines in both submissions. The submissions contain some good points about supporting investment and jobs through the tax system. Points Nos. 1, 2 and 3 under that heading are imaginative, creative and realistic.

I come back, however, to the fundamental point that one should not presume that taxes cannot provide the short-term three year bridging financing to carry €1.25 billion of the readjustment programme without hurting the economy, as Deputy Joe Higgins has said. The indigenous economy, GNP, is worth €130 billion while GDP is €150 billion or more. The one that everyone in Europe talks about is GDP but this country is, realistically, on GNP. For our 250,000 employees, it is GNP that counts. We must get this message across to people listening in from abroad. It is not happening. They do not understand the household and business debt burdens on our society.

That is why the proposal about the cash receipts basis being increased is very clever, because the small businesses cannot get the liquidity to pay their VAT bills due to the volatility of their incomes. Well done, but I urge the witnesses to think about it and not to be afraid. I have asked the chief executives of the multinational corporations about corporation tax. They would not blink if the rate went from 12.5% to 15%, and that would yield €670 million.