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

In any event, they will pay a lot of money to the "big five" to outline the different scenarios to ascertain where the least tax load would fall. One can be sure of that in any case. In the debate, discussion or conversation on this issue, it would be important for public understanding to tease out what is the philosophical basis of taxation. I acknowledge everyone hates it but there is some relationship between citizens working in Ireland, earning an income and paying an income tax. It is for a reason and I note the Tax Transparency Bill will try to explain where the tax goes in a way, to give it some kind of philosophical basis. The same point applies to companies. Does a company invest in Ireland because we have water around the island and, therefore, invading land-based armies have at least one further obstacle to overcome? The European experience is they had two extremely serious wars within 20 years of each other. Moreover, they had experienced other wars earlier, as well as the subsequent Soviet blanket over eastern Europe after the Second World War. People running companies and boards of companies do not talk about this but they think about it. Perhaps that is a bigger reason so many multinational corporations, MNCs, come to Ireland with their foreign direct investment. It is not simply because of corporation tax at a rate of 12.5%. I believe, professionally, they would not even blink an eye were the headline rate at 15%. Moreover, this could be worth a serious amount of money for the Exchequer on an annual basis. Based on the last corporate profit tax returns, it would amount to €600 million. For any companies contemplating coming to Ireland, it would not put them off because as members are aware, they do their tax planning on a global basis, which ascertains what is the effective tax rate. However, as I noted in respect of the earlier presentation, we again have created a shadow that might not be there. I invite Mr. Tobin and his colleagues to be brave, to think differently and perhaps to suggest to the Government and the Cabinet that a corporation tax rate of 15% could be cemented in for the next seven years.