Ms Margrethe Vestager:

Maybe I have got it now. On the one side, we have the tax system in Ireland working as the tax system should work in Ireland. At the same time, we have our common legislation on state aid saying that one cannot give a selective advantage to one company or a group of companies if it is not open to everyone. These two things have to be upheld at the same time. In the state aid legislation, we have the power to go back ten years to see if state aid has been given out and, if it is illegal, it has to be recovered. It does not change anything in the Irish tax code or how the tax authorities work if someone is behind in paying their taxes or something else which is completely within the authority of the national authorities. The two things have to be upheld at the same time but they come from different perspectives.

Ms Margrethe Vestager: Maybe I have got it now. On the one side, we have the tax system in Ireland working as the tax system should work in Ireland. At the same time, we have our common legislation on state aid saying that one cannot give a selective advantage or one company or a group of companies if it is not open to everyone. These two things have to be upheld at the same time. In the state aid legislation, we have the power to go back ten years to see if state aid has been given out and if it is illegal it has to be recovered. That does not change anything in the Irish tax code or how the tax authorities work if someone is behind in paying their taxes or something else which is completely within the authority of the national authorities. The two things have to be upheld at the same time but they come from different perspectives.