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

I would question that expenditure because we are spending taxpayers' money - taxpayers who do pay a high proportion of their income in tax - to ensure the multinationals, who pay a very low proportion of profits on tax, continue to pay a low proportion of their profits in tax. We are increasing the public subsidy of maintaining low taxes on multinational corporations. That is a gross waste of money and it would be far better, if we do have to employ consultants, to employ consultants doing something useful which might benefit the Irish taxpayer. It is noteworthy that there was a significant increase in that regard.

Our job as a committee is to monitor expenditure. On the consultancy services on page 23, provision of shared services subhead E1, there was an increase to €490,000 in 2014 and €1.85 million in 2015. Could the Minister outline the reason for this?