Mr. Jim Clarken:

It is quite offensive to the citizens of Ireland that such an assertion is being made on behalf of all of us in the context of the investment that takes place here because of the things the Deputy mentioned. The benefits include that Ireland has an English-speaking, well educated workforce, as well as access to the European market. It is worth remembering that although we had a consistent tax rate for many years, things did not really take off until the mid-1990s following the peace process, when there was the investment of funds from the European Union in infrastructure. There was also the impact of investment in education over a long period. We understand there are global accountancy giants which are advocating and presenting Ireland in this very way. This goes to the heart of what we want in terms of the need for transparency. We cannot see a justifiable reason not to have absolute transparency and public country-by-country reporting in order that people in the media and others can scrutinise what is happening. Unless civil society can do the same in having public registers of beneficial ownership and the publication of tax rulings, we will not have learned sufficiently from what has happened here and there is a real fear that it will continue in the future. We have not heard a single, rational, strong reason we are resisting providing for that level of transparency. We cannot rely on LuxLeaks, the Panama papers and all of the solid pieces of investigative work by journalists to provide us with information which should be publicly available.