John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. O'Leary and his colleagues. That was an interesting exchange with Deputy Shane Ross, beginning by outlining his view that it was undeniable that IDA Ireland had been and was very successful and then questioning the reasons for that being the case. I did not know what to make of it.

As someone who worked on the issue of the US Senate finance committee dealing with trade, I am not too bothered about the angst of the members of the US Senate finance committee. I believe I know the motivation behind those hearings, which comes down to a competitive world in attracting companies to one location as opposed to another. I think we know that and have been very good at it. We annoy countries by being so successful in attracting so many companies into Ireland in the past 25 years. The reason the Netherlands, Singapore and the United Kingdom are changing their tax regimes is that ours has proved to be so successful. Waffling on about conduits and transfer pricing, etc. is naïve when everybody here understands why Ireland has become such an attractive location for such companies, particularly those from the United States. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

My concern - I have spoken to Mr. O'Leary about this over the years - is the level of our attractiveness now and how we can make ourselves more attractive considering what the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and others are doing. It is becoming more of a danger as far as our attractiveness is concerned. The number of companies that can be attracted to particular locations is tightening. There is a global downturn. Considering what other countries are doing with regard to the patent box and lowering their corporation tax rates, how can we become more attractive for inward investment?