Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Commissioner may have noticed that there is a very significant irony at play in this committee in that the political parties which were the most enthusiastic supporters of the European Union are most resistant to her findings in this matter and those of us who were most critical of the European Union are the most enthusiastic about her findings because some of us believe that there has been a facilitation of aggressive tax avoidance by multinationals operating in this jurisdiction.

As there seems to be confusion about what the Commissioner has concluded on this matter, for the purposes of clarity I will suggest a summary of what I believe she is saying. I must say that I agree with her. The essence of her conclusion on this matter resolves around the fact that profits that were generated by Apple in Ireland were allocated to a subsidiary of Apple that had no real economic existence. Is that essentially the case? Is that the essence of it? It is impossible to allocate profits to an entity that has no employees, no offices and that can show no evidence whatsoever of any economic activity. Is that the essence of what the Commissioner is saying?

If so, in Ms Vestager's questioning of Revenue did it explain how it had allowed the allocation of profits to such entities because I am confused as to how it could possibly have made that decision which Ms Vestager has questioned?