Mr. Gary Tobin:

Certainly, we are very involved. During the Irish Presidency, there was a discussion at the informal ECOFIN meeting that the Minister for Finance hosted in Dublin Castle on the issue of aggressive tax planning and tax avoidance. On foot of that, the Minister and Commissioner Semeta wrote a letter to all European Finance Ministers suggesting a seven-point plan that could be agreed in regard to tackling aggressive tax planning. By the end of our Presidency, we had five of the seven points agreed. The following two are being followed up by the Lithuanians, who currently hold the Presidency.

Aside from that, there is a variety of fora. For example, at European level there is a group on harmful tax competition, called the code of conduct group. That group, in which both myself and Mr. O'Dea are involved, is concerned with how the European Union interacts with third countries outside the EU. Sometimes it can seem as if it is always one European country having issues with another European country when, in fact, a lot of the time it is Europe versus other countries with which we are having some problems.

The code of conduct group is examining our relationship with third countries. I am hopeful that some of the more aggressive tax structures that are in place in third country jurisdictions, which impact on Europeans, could be tackled through the code of conduct group.