Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is Vote by Vote, which will be a great help. We are covering ground that is not always obvious until we tease it out.

The next item on the agenda is correspondence received. In category A we have Nos. 1061 and 1066 received from the Department of Rural and Community Development, providing a briefing document and the opening statement for today’s meeting. We will note these.

Category B is correspondence from Accounting Officers or Ministers, follow-up to Committee of Public Account meetings and other items for publishing. I will deal with a group of correspondence which feeds into the committee's work on corporation tax. Nos. 974, 980, 1003, 1004, 1025, 1026, 1028 and 1035 to 1037, inclusive, are correspondence from dates in December and January from the following multinational companies to which we wrote: J.P. Morgan, Citibank, Apple, Ryanair, Kerry Group, Glanbia, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Google and Cement Roadstone. We invited all these companies to meet with the committee on a voluntary basis to help us in our examination of the chapter in the Comptroller and Auditor General's 2016 annual report on corporation tax. All but GlaxoSmithKline declined the invitation with many companies stating they would not be in a position to provide the assistance required. We will note and publish all the letters.

I have picked out relevant paragraphs in some of them. J.P. Morgan said it had an average corporation tax of 13% and 12.2% on taxable profits in 2014 and 2015. That is what it says in its letter.

Citibank said its tax affairs are fully compliant. It goes on to say it is following the OECD discussion on the BEPS project.

In its letter to us, Apple said:

Thank for [the] letter of November 23, 2017. We acknowledge and fully respect the role of the Committee and its current focus and we thank you for inviting us to address your members. As you know, both Ireland and Apple have appealed the European Commission's decision alleging State aid. While that legal process and appeal is ongoing, we are constrained from commenting and therefore will not be in a position to send a representative to the Committee.

I am just putting that on the record. We made clear in our letter to Apple that we would not discuss the merits of that case but it referenced the case as its reason for not wanting to come.

Ryanair wrote back and said it had an extensive programme with union recognition and does not have the management resources available to come in and talk to us.

Kerry Group said it is a large company but is not in a position to attend.

Glanbia has sent a detailed, helpful letter to our committee in our consideration of the matter. It gives an example of how a large multinational, which Glanbia is, interacts with the Revenue Commissioners. I ask people to read that letter. It highlights what it considers the excellent Revenue online service. It says it is part of the large cases division. It highlights the fact there is a nominated person in the Revenue to deal with all of Glanbia's affairs, which it finds most helpful. The letter is from Siobhán Talbot, who is the group managing director. Talking about the way it deals with Revenue, she says: "In fact we consider that this should be part of Ireland's offering to attract foreign direct investment i.e. make it known that Ireland has a best-in-class tax administration including both efficient online systems (e.g. ROS) and availability of senior revenue personnel to resolve technical issues promptly and efficiently." That is praise of the Revenue Commissioners from Glanbia. She says from her dealings with other countries, the Irish Revenue is top of the class. We want to say that. She has given us useful information that we will consider as part of our report.

Pfizer has written to us. It said "Pfizer appreciates Ireland's commitment to the 12.5% corporate income tax rate." It thinks that is quite important.

GlaxoSmithKline wrote to us and discussed its availability to come in.

Google said it is not in a position to attend.

Cement Roadstone said it is part of the Revenue's large case division and has direct dealings with the Revenue, which it highlights in a positive way.

Some of them have replied with particular comments that we will take on board. Deputy Cullinane had asked about that. We discussed GlaxoSmithKline briefly in private session last week. I thank it for its acceptance of the invitation and for making contact with the secretariat to make the necessary arrangements. While it is an offer we may take up at some point in the future, in our current examination it would not be representative of the multinational sector to only have one company in. I propose we write to GlaxoSmithKline to thank it and formally communicate our decision. We will agree not to invite it in at this time. We are not saying we will not invite it in but just not immediately.

There are a couple of letters there. We will be holding a private session next week with Brian Keegan, the director of Chartered Accountants Ireland, who will give a briefing to the committee on this area and it will be followed by public engagement with Mr. Keegan on the morning of 22 February. Mr. Keegan has considerable expertise in this field and he will assist the committee and the public in our understanding by way of that attendance at the public meeting. We will be completing our examination of that topic with a further engagement from the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners on the afternoon of 22 February. We will have an impartial expert here on the morning and a wrap-up session with Revenue and the Department of Finance to deal with the issues that will emerge in the public briefing session.