Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have been to the OECD a number of times and it is good to see the ambassador here as well. Deputies Michael McGrath and Burton have touched on almost all the points. Mr. Gurría has outlined the progress that Ireland has made in adopting country-by-country reporting, engaging with the BEPS process and so on. I am concerned that one or two US companies contribute a huge chunk of our corporation tax, which in one way, as Mr. Gurría acknowledges, is good because we are good at it, but if any of those companies were to move or the US decided to work differently with those companies, we could have a problem. It would create a very big hole in our budget if one, two or three of those companies were to disappear or the tax generated by those companies was gone. How vulnerable is Ireland being that focused on a very small number of companies contributing a large proportion of tax?

I ask Mr. Gurría to outline his attitude towards property tax. People in this country are not very willing to embrace the concept. They feel it is a tax on something they have had to earn money to buy and then they are being taxed on already owning it, whereas if they did not own it in the first place, they would have no tax to pay. There is considerable resistance to it. I know the OECD report proposed more revenue from property tax.

After Japan, Ireland has the second highest indebted public debt in the world. I ask Mr. Gurría to comment on that.