Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

----- with a major company who made strong allegations about the role of Ireland. As parliamentarians, we are very defensive of the Government's policy on a corporation tax rate of 12.5%. We are highly supportive, through the Irish Aid programme for example, of aiding and abetting the countries mentioned by the witnesses. While Ms O'Neill mentioned the practice in Tanzania, we discovered corruption in Uganda whereby €3 million of Irish taxpayers' money, that is, Irish Aid money, was being diverted, as well as a further €3 million each from two other countries. In other words, €9 million was being diverted. We praised ourselves for having built within that governmental structure the office of Comptroller and Auditor General and for raising its level of competency to the point at which that office itself was able to notice there had been fraud.

On the OECD, I can perceive no reason whereby Ireland would not or should not engage in a co-operative approach to what clearly is an international problem. Stateless companies are something that are relatively new. Until the recent past, I certainly had never heard of companies that are affiliated to no state and which are making vast profits but are not distributing them or paying taxes on them. Tanzania was mentioned, which is one of Ireland's programme countries. It is a pity that Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan is not present because the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa, AWEPA, of which I believe she is the chairperson of the Irish section, has a collaborative relationship with Tanzania. If Tanzania is looking at financial outflows from that country relating to taxation and if we are concerned about it from a governmental or an Irish Aid position, then it is worth trying to develop this collaboration.

Nobody can pretend to protect these companies which make vast profits and use Ireland as a base through which to flush their profits. Coca Cola is probably one of the longest regarded companies that has flushed its profits through Ireland and repatriated them to America without paying taxes. We, collectively, can be very supportive of abolishing countries' debts. It is very easy for us to say that but we at this committee are very conscious of incredible abuses and corruption throughout many of these indebted countries that are indebted. They have corrupt politicians and governments and there is an inability to collect taxes from the national base. The moral hazard question is at what stage does one exonerate these countries for creating policies that have created misery for their people? I will leave it at that.