Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Professor Barry is being consistent. It does not matter how often the argument to the contrary is made; a country with a population of 4.5 million cannot change global taxation to make it fairer. We must be selfish in this regard. The Government has made clear it would like the global architecture changed. Until then, however, the current architecture will remain in place. In light of the contribution to GDP made by corporation tax, one would have to agree that we are successful in this area.

While I appreciate Professor Barry did not refer specifically to Apple, the company was named on a number of occasions and we were informed it does not have operations here. Apple employs 4,500 people on the north side of Cork city, all of whom pay tax and PRSI.