David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will finish with the special report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. There is a quote which has been dealt with but on which I have some questions, "eight of the 100 companies with the highest taxable income had an effective tax rate of zero, including some who had negative rates", which are cases in which rebates were paid, "A further five had an effective rate of less than 1%." Mr. Palmer said earlier that corporation tax is highly concentrated, which it is, and that a small number of companies pay more than 30% of the total corporation tax take, which is also true. However, there are also a small number of companies that pay very little corporation tax. That is the other side of it which we are seeing this report. Perhaps this was already done, but can Mr. Cody help me to understand how those companies can end up with an effective corporation tax of zero or 1%? How would that be the case? These were companies with high taxable incomes.