Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Commissioner. There is mobile phone interference so I ask that all phones be switched off. Taxation policy was always considered to be within the national remit of each individual country because it was seen as part of their way of keeping their economies competitive through being able to vary their taxation systems. This was because, obviously, for peripheral countries like Ireland to have control of their taxation policy would give them some competitive advantage in regard to central European countries which have bigger markets, better infrastructure and, therefore, a competitive advantage over peripheral countries like Ireland.

Ireland's taxation policy is very transparent. Every single company in Ireland, big or small, whether it is a multinational or the local garage or plumber, pays 12.5%. In many European countries, however, from what I can gather at European meetings where members of parliament are present from different countries, and even at OECD meetings, it seems that corporation taxation policies are opaque and can even vary within countries, depending on which region one goes to. When Mr. Moscovici talks about a common consolidated corporation taxation policy, are these issues, including historic issues, taken into account?

There is a certain concern in some of the peripheral countries of the Union that we are seeing a retreat to the centre, with the larger member states consolidating among themselves rather than taking into account what is happening on the peripheries. It is possibly because our system is so transparent that we are so easy to beat up, to put it mildly. Meanwhile, countries whose systems are far more opaque are difficult to analyse precisely because it is so difficult to say how much corporations there are actually paying. When people go to the trouble of working that out, it transpires that many of these countries are charging much less in corporation tax than we are in Ireland.

Another issue I wish to raise might be outside of Mr. Moscovici's remit, but I would appreciate his view on it. When the Commission Vice President, Mr. Katainen, was here last week, some of our discussion was about the need for investment and it was notable that the emphasis in this regard seems to be very much on structures and infrastructure. Mr. Moscovici has made the point that we do not want to end up in the second division because we are not investing. I would argue, however, that the real problem for Europe is that we are not investing in people. The gap between demand and supply in the case of, say, skilled information technology workers is huge. My concern is that we do not seem to be moving in a direction that would see a closing of that gap in the foreseeable future. Will Mr. Moscovici comment on that? Efforts to address the issue must take place at European rather than national level and involve major investments in people and universities to bring skills sets up and enable us to compete into the future in this very important sector.