Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I will not need ten. I thank the witnesses for their interesting presentation and for engaging with us. To touch on a point which Deputy Lahart made in respect of the lost decade, it was not about finishing the projects which had been started but about the projects which we were not able to start. The second terminal in Dublin Airport was finished but we were not able to build metro north out to it because of the lack of resources brought about by the crash. I would like to see it progressed now that we have managed the economy, brought to stability and have got ourselves back on a sound footing in this regard. The current housing crisis was born out of the fact we did not have money to build social housing during the Troika programme. The term "lost decade" does not mean we did not continue to deliver on some projects which had been started, but there was definitely a period which impacted on business as well as on different decisions that Government made across communities.

I had a question on IBEC's view on corporation tax. The witnesses have touched on that issue already, but perhaps I can focus on the fact that, when we discussed it in the committee last week with the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the ESRI, we heard that much of our corporation tax comes from very few companies.

Could we hear the witnesses' views on the volatility of this and on the decisions that are made by accountants in a small number of multinational corporations, and how this can impact on the tax take? Do the witnesses have suggestions for measures around the volatility of corporation tax, from the collection aspect and the budgetary perspective in how we forecast it, which proves to be very challenging for us to do every year?

The research and development tax credit proposal was referred to and I would like some more detail on it. Does IBEC have a costing on it? I am mindful that in 2015 the Government spent €707 million on the research and development tax credit, which was a 900% increase since 2004. Does IBEC believe this is an efficient use of taxpayers' money? Are we getting bang for our buck from it? What is the costing on the proposal that the witnesses touched on in the presentation?

What are IBEC's views on the tourism hospitality 9% VAT rate? Do they believe that it helped to get people back to work, as it was designed to do, and do they believe that those jobs are now absolutely dependent on it all across the sector in Ireland? I ask the witnesses to try to look at the issue from our perspective, which is whether the value for money from that measure is the best use of our money to keep people in those jobs and to support that sector?