Professor Jim Stewart:

Tax havens cannot be illegal. I am not saying companies are not complying totally with tax law. Tax concessions such as the Patent Box in the United Kingdom, for example, and others about which we have been hearing are perfectly legal. The point is that tax havens have relatively favourable tax regimes for the corporate sector. Ireland has some features of a tax haven - a low corporation tax rate, a very favourable tax regime, offers ease of incorporation and considerable flexibility in the tax treatment of multinational companies in the annual Budget Statement. Some countries have even more favourable concessions; it is not a question, therefore, of Ireland being singled out. There are lots of issues at play. Media attention is also focused on other countries with tax haven-type features.