Mr. Paddy McGuinness:

Yes. These are amazing institutions but they did not start as such. They started with a few people in a room. That is the message Africa needs to hear.

Taxes and debt are touchy enough subjects in Ireland given issues around transfer pricing among our own transnationals and the way in which we manage our tax affairs. The Deputy is correct that there should be international transparency agreements with these companies. People should be paying taxes somewhere. They should pay tax in these countries, which need the revenue, not least as a form of anti-corruption measure. Where a government demands taxes of the private sector, over time it will iron out some of the corruption. It will become an expectation that if a company wants to operate, it pays taxes. That becomes a norm, which is not the case now in so many places in Africa. It is all done in funny money. If a container has to make 17 stops, the cost is incurred 17 times. That makes it a business problem.

It is now a business problem, not a corruption problem, because one is less competitive. The pressure from the private sector on the politicians is to get the police or whoever is engaged in it out of the way because we are not paying twice. People think profit leads to corruption. It also has the power to do away with corruption if used in the right way.