Ms Josephine Feehily:

It was remarked earlier by Deputy Higgins that the Revenue does not comment on cases. We are strictly bound by taxpayer confidentiality for all taxpayers no matter how big. Any comments I make cannot be associated with a particular taxpayer or case. We cannot comment nor do we comment on cases.

However, I have noted the Government position that there are no special deals on tax with any company. This has been confirmed by a statement from Tim Cook this morning, as I understand. I can certainly assure the committee that Revenue does not do special deals on tax rates for any company of any size. I am speaking in general and not about any company in particular.

Our tax system is statute-based and transparent. I have no role in changing it.

Global businesses and global tax arbitrage comprise an extremely complex area of work for us. It is an area which raises complex policy issues and complex global political issues which need to be considered in the first instance at the policy and political levels, long before they reach us as tax administrators. In my view - the Government has said this, but I wish to give members my perspective - these issues can only be resolved by direct engagement at OECD and EU level. Reference has been made in the commentary to the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, BEPS, report. The work on that report is supported by Revenue officials in numerous working parties in the OECD. We are working closely with people from other tax administrations in this regard. The Forum on Tax Administration is where tax commissioners meet under the auspices of the OECD. The week before last, 55 of us met in this capacity under my chairmanship, where we considered what our role as tax commissioners should be in the context of the BEPS report. We announced in our final communiquéthat we stand ready to implement the action plan whenever it emerges from the policy considerations that are to come.

In summary, our position in regard to global tax compliance is that it is a global issue. Countries on their own cannot resolve it, not even if, in Ireland's case, we had 1 million people working in Revenue. We stand absolutely ready, however, to implement any of the actions that are decided on by the OECD. Information, particularly third-party information, is the lifeblood of tax administration. We have very strong exchange of information arrangements with other tax authorities. I expect the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, FATCA, will prove useful to us in this regard. I welcome the move by the European Union, under the Irish Presidency, towards greater exchange of information that will give us access to data. This is in a different space entirely to the other issue; it is not about BEPS but about evasion. At the meeting I referred to and which I chaired, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom announced that they have put together something like 400 GB of data which they intend to share with us under treaty arrangements. We are very active globally with our administration colleagues once the policy issues have been resolved and are passed down to us to deal with.