Mr. Seamus Coffey:

On the public debate, I am surprised it took so long for the issue to get traction. I felt it had become an issue even before I started the review and I would have discussed it at the Committee on Budgetary Oversight in September 2016 about the likely increase we would see in the amount of capital allowances we claimed. The data only came out perhaps seven or eight months later and even during the review, I felt it could possibly get a lot of attention before the review was published. Even when the review was published, I was surprised it did not get a significant amount of attention, given the scale of the increases and the potential amount of tax revenue involved. Everything needs a hook to grasp that attention and the stories published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists offer that hook. It provided some focus on the issue.

The question of reputational damage also arose around the time of the Apple state aid case. We have not seen companies viewing Ireland in a negative fashion and not wanting to invest here because of the spotlight on Ireland. The foreign direct investment and employment continues to increase. We seem to be in a sweet spot at present. We are getting investment in physical goods. I know we have the intangibles but we are also getting investment in physical goods, the plant and the machinery. We are now also getting the corporation tax receipts. We cannot be sure how long that sweet spot will last but I do not think, with regard to investment decisions companies are making, that we are seeing knock-on reputational damage in a negative sense because investment continues to flow.