Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I did not say, "no jobs". The point is that the IFSC, like the City of London, functions as a tax haven for international finance. If one looks at the almost €2 trillion in assets that exist there compared with the number of jobs, the gap is enormous. The average productivity of those working in the IFSC is some incredible figure that is wildly out of whack with productivity in other European Union countries because Ireland functions as part of a global network of tax havens. One side of those tax havens is the Paradise Papers. It is Panama, Bermuda, etc. Another side is the functioning of the City of London but also the functioning of the IFSC in Ireland. Let us debate that.

Then let us also acknowledge that a huge number of financial assets are located, certainly, nominally speaking, in Ireland. A huge number of financial transactions take place through Ireland and there is a significant potential revenue source that the Government refuses to look at because it is part of defending the model of Ireland being a tax haven. We dealt with this previously in terms of the amendment on a minimum effective rate of corporation tax, but the Government has the same approach to the financial sector which is at the cutting edge of tax avoidance.