Mr. Seamus Coffey:

One of the elements of the formulary apportionment, that is, the calculation that apportions the taxable base across EU countries, is sales, and the proposal clearly states "sales by destination". Therefore, when the company sells to its own final customer, which does not necessarily have to be the final purchaser of the product, once the product leaves the company or group of companies, by and large, any further exchanges relating to that product are not included in financial data. Therefore, it is not known when that happens. There is a financial statement which shows either turnover, revenue or whatever else, and the Commission essentially takes those figures, looks at the output maybe from a certain sector and assigns that to a certain country. In the case of Ireland, we know that the output or the turnover from pharmaceuticals, for example, is huge, but the sales are not happening here. The Commission therefore makes no attempt to figure out where the sales are happening, applies the output on revenue figures and calculates their weights on the basis of that. This will obviously show Ireland in a relatively positive light because the stuff is made here but is not sold here.