Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms O'Brien and Mr. Lucey from the Irish Tax Institute and I thank them for their opening remarks. As they know, we had a detailed hearing last week with the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Finance and the Commission to inform us in taking a view on the current proposals. Ms O'Brien has given a quite detailed overview of the proposals as they stand. Hers is a quite negative assessment overall. What is the view the of the institute on the analysis carried out by EY on behalf of the Department a number of years ago - in 2012, I believe? At the time, it was based on data from 2005. This was applied by the ESRI recently in its assessment of CCCTB. That was based on the 2011 version of the proposal. It concluded that the loss would be around €325 million in corporation tax receipts if the arrangement had been applied in 2005, representing a reduction of approximately 5.7%. In terms of today's receipts, that would be a higher figure in nominal terms. One might have believed the impact would be even greater than that predicted by the ESRI. Could Ms O'Brien give us her view on that? Is the conclusion based on certain assumptions? The presentation of Ms O'Brien is even more negative, perhaps, than what the ESRI's data might lead one to conclude.