Mr. Gary Tobin:

Yes, I totally agree with Deputy Murphy. The Commission has a duty to protect the treaties and ensure state aid is not featuring. That is taken as read.

On taxation matters in general, the Deputy will be aware that all matters regarding direct taxation at European level are a matter for unanimity. All countries must agree before any tax change. This is completely separate from state aid but, before any agreement would be made, on any major tax policy matter, for example, there would be a requirement for unanimity. We are very well protected in terms of our sovereign rights regarding tax policy. In fairness to the European Commission, I have been at meetings held by it where it said absolutely that it is not interested in or in the business of seeking to harmonise corporation tax rates. It wants to ensure, however, that corporation tax rates are generally applied across the board. Obviously, in the past, we would have had regimes, including that allowing for the manufacturing relief of 10%, that would have had State aid approval at the time. It would have been approved at EU level. Over time, there has been a move towards general corporation tax rates. That is up to individual member states to determine. That is just the way it is.