Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has said the companies at the centre of this have a long-standing relationship with the State. I accept that the Apple company in Cork that employs more than 4,000 people has been here for a long time. Hopefully, it will stay for an equally long time. We are not talking about the company for which the employees work; we are talking about the other companies. Two of them skedaddled to Jersey. Apple Sales International is no longer based in Ireland. Apple Operations International is no longer based in Ireland; it is now based in Jersey. They left because Ireland decided to end the stateless company status they enjoyed.

The other company Apple Operations Europe, AOE, decided to register here for one reason only. It was because there is no tax implication on the profits attributed to all the sales of products recorded by that company outside America, worth €119 billion, because it is allowed to use its capital allowance against its taxes. It is able to do that because the Government and the Minister's predecessor allowed that change to happen.

Was the Minister, his predecessor or the Department aware that as a result of the change to the residency rules there would be an increase in the onshoring of IP? Was the Minister lobbied on giving certainty to these companies onshoring IP? Was that factored into the judgment to change the threshold from 80% to 100%? The consequence of that was that in the period from 2014 to 2015, the claims for capital allowances went up from €2.8 billion to €28 billion, a massive increase. However, it does not end there because hundreds of billions worth of IP was taken onshore during that period. I ask the Minister to answer first those questions on the lobbying of Department of Finance and the Minister over certainty of IP onshoring as a direct result the changes in residency the Government introduced in 2013 and 2014. I know it happened. Companies lobbied to have IP onshored. The Paradise Papers inform us what Apple is doing. Once all Apple's capital allowances are used up, AOE could move to Jersey or anywhere and then we will never see the taxation on the profits.

We need to remember what we are talking about here. We have discussed a lot of stuff in respect of this Bill over the past two days. The Minister is deciding to forgo €850 million of tax. To change that all we have to do is change four numbers in the Finance Bill - just the date of implication. The Minister wants it only to apply going forward because he wants certainty for Apple that it will not have to pay a penny in tax for the next decade on the €190 billion in transactions it is recording in an Irish company. That is what the Minister is doing.

There are serious questions. I have serious suspicions that a deal was done. It may not have been done directly sitting across the table with Apple because people are smarter than this. However, the Minister knew when the Government closed down the stateless companies that those stateless companies had to do something - either leave here for another jurisdiction, which two of them did, or register here. Allowing them to take their IP onshore and increasing that to 100% gave them a massive windfall. It is not just Apple, but Apple is the major beneficiary of it.

The Commission is now looking into its post-2015 structure. This stinks to high heavens. As the Minister has said, this is a policy choice. It has been made by the Minister and not by his officials or legal advisers. He has decided to let an annual sum of €850 million go amiss. He has decided to let Apple be able to write off its taxes and to settle for the €150 million that will come in the future. That is not sensible. Is the Minister aware of the lobbying that went on regarding the proposal to move intellectual property onshore as a result of the changes in tax residency rules? Did that factor into the decision made by the Minister at that time? Will the Minister release all of the documents relating to lobbying directly to the Minister, the Minister of State or any officials within the Department over the period from 2013 to 2015, including any direct or indirect contact with Apple or any of its subsidiaries?