Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Professor Stewart and Ms O'Brien and thank them for their presentations.

I will start by asking Professor Stewart questions in order to tease out his main thesis. As he will know, there is a fundamental distinction between the incorporation of a company and tax residency of a company. It seems that the US data, which he has relied heavily on, included in its calculation the global operations of US companies which are incorporated here. It did not restrict its analysis to the operations of companies that are tax resident here. Can he explain the rationale behind his findings? He put a lot of emphasis on the US data which, in my view, is not a fair commentary on Ireland. The key issue which determines where a company's profits are taxable is where it is resident. He seems to have placed a lot of emphasis on incorporation, which is a different issue.