Mr. Mike Lewis:

I would echo much of what Ms O'Brien said. The direct impact of the EU proposals will depend upon whether the turnover tax is tax creditable in other jurisdictions, the interim proposal and the allocation methods used in the final proposal. That will determine whether those specific measures lead to a net tax revenue gain or loss for Ireland.

In terms of the larger element about where Ireland sits in these kinds of digital companies' tax structures, and what effect wider reforms would have on Ireland's tax base, on the one hand, as we have said, there is a significant presence of a number of these companies in Ireland and they conduct activities here that we would say undermines the tax base of some other countries. The way many of these structures work, as we show in our report, is that there is an effort also to shift profits out of Ireland into even lower tax jurisdictions. It is the reason, for example, Ireland runs such an enormous deficit in royalty payments. It is not clear-cut to say this is an area of economic activity where, if more regulation was introduced, Ireland would lose out because its position in these structures is much more polyvalent.