Mr. Ronan Hession:

I am not sure is the short answer. I would be surprised if adopting a common base in itself was to defeat tax avoidance entirely. What we have had over the last number of years is a recognition at OECD level and beyond, to a much broader cohort of about 100 countries, that the rules as they are currently formulated leave tax planning opportunities and that it needs to be tightened up. That is really what the BEPS reports were about. Ireland has always been very positive about that process and very sensitive about the fact we have a very new international consensus on this and the importance of implementing that in order to address the problem of tax planning. We have to always be sensitive that at EU level we do not risk undermining that consensus or put in place a rival regime that would somehow frustrate the reforms we have already got. There is a balance there and I am sure when we come to discuss this among member states in more detail there will be an attempt to try to strike that right balance.