Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In respect of corporation tax and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council's advice that the yield in 2015 might not be sustainable, when we were formulating the budget for this year, we took that into account. The outturn for 2015 from corporation tax was €6.9 billion but we put €6.6 billion into the budget for 2016 so we were allowing for the fact that there might be some fall off. In the summer economic statement, we increased that projected figure to €7.1 billion because an extra €500 million had come in. This is allowing for the repayments Revenue has adverted to now. We did not ignore the advice of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council but took it into account when we formulated last year's budget. Events have overtaken it again and it looks as if, by year end, more will be collected in corporation tax than was collected last year and significantly more than was estimated in the budget.