Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We do not disagree with what the Minister has said about our highly open economy. The figures I have mentioned are staggering. They are indicative of something more than a highly open economy. Between 2010 and 2015, some 23% of our GDP was made up of royalty payments. Alarm bells should be ringing. It is serious. This is not just a question of having a highly open economy. The European average is 0.34%. Successive Finance Bills have designed our tax policy in a deliberate way. The Minister is happy. He is guilty of that.

He is continuing a policy of onshoring assets that has been argued against by the chair of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC. He has only moved in respect of those that will be brought onshore in the aftermath of last year's Finance Act. This measure could bring in €850 million, which could go a long way towards dealing with the issues that have been identified in the Commission's report, for example, people at risk of poverty or the fact that we have the highest cost of childcare for single parents and the second highest in Europe for couples. Notwithstanding the small effort that has been made by the Government to address these problems, does the Minister not see that he is facilitating them? There is a major imbalance.