Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I agree it must be looked at. However, Ms McVeigh has pretty much admitted that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever for some of the assertions about the possible dangers. I will put one scenario to Ms McVeigh. We have a low corporate tax rate. When a corporation decides whether it will invest here, they do not just look at the financial transaction tax or the corporation tax in isolation; they consider the package and decide whether they would be better off in Ireland than somewhere else. Given that there is a pretty significant gap between effective corporate tax rates in Britain and effective corporate tax rates here, the idea that an extra tax of one tenth of one percent on financial transactions in the IFSC is going to lead to a flood of companies moving out of the IFSC and into London is bordering on the preposterous.