Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Cody is doing a good selling job and I do not dispute what he is saying as I am all for expanding the public sector.

The recent Oxfam report states if the EU criteria applied to tax havens were applied to Ireland, we would be blacklisted, with Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands. While it states we are okay when it comes to the BEPS, base erosion and profit shifting, project, compliance and tax transparency, we would be blacklisted when it came to fair taxation. One of the criteria used in judging fair taxation is the relationship between real economic activity and capital flows. That is the red flag for what we politely call tax avoidance or whatever euphemism we use for the guys who try to pay no tax.

According to the Oxfam report, royalties coming out of Ireland are the equivalent of 26% of gross domestic product. That signals that there is something amiss. What does Mr. Cody think about this and intellectual property? I know that he cannot comment on the politics of the issue of intangible assets allowance. However, when one looks at the massive placing onshore of intellectual property after the change to that measure, whatever the rights and wrongs of the decision, clearly it was tax avoidance activity and should be called as such. Does Mr. Cody feel able to say placing onshore of intellectual property on such a scale is clearly tax avoidance activity? It distorts the economy to the extent that it does not bear any relationship to real economic activity which, in turn, should signal that we have got to do something about it.

One point construction workers make to me is that if the same criteria were applied to the relationship between real economic activity and tax revenue under the relevant contracts tax, RCT, system, there should be a red flag there too. The latest figures I received from the Revenue Commissioners showed how the net income from 55,000 workers in the construction sector was €20 million after refunds and offsets. There was a gross figure of €200 million. The figure for offsets was €160 million. The tax revenue from 55,000 PAYE workers would be 100 times that amount. Should there not be a red flag given the mismatch between real economic activity and, in one case, tax revenue and, in another, the scale of capital flows? If the European Commission's judgment against Apple on the provision of state aid and a tax liability that flowed from it was applied to other similar firms which used the same tax structures, is it possible the European Union might believe it was owed more money?