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

Depending on which way one looks at it, it may hit us as another shock if it was not just Apple. Should we not also be looking into the possibility that it is not €13 billion but is a hell of a lot more? Can the witnesses also confirm that if the activities of these tax-dodging multinationals have artificially inflated the GDP and growth figures, this also means it is not simply in the year of the 26% jump in growth that Ireland will be obliged to pay a much bigger contribution to the European Union but that we have been overpaying to the European Union all along? I seek the witnesses' views on this because it seems to be a logical follow-on from what they said, namely, we have been forking out money to the European Union disproportionately for quite some time because of the distortion created by multinationals essentially tax dodging in this country.