Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The senior adviser in the then Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation warned against the Government changing the figure in respect of the onshoring of assets and intellectual property from 80% to 100%. He said it would cause reputational damage and reduce the effective tax rate to 1.25%. Instead, the Minister's predecessor moved from 90%, the figure that was under discussion in the paper in question, to 100% despite that advice. The Department still will not release the minutes of the four meetings it had with Apple, which was the largest beneficiary of this tax move. We know that Apple discussed this issue with departmental officials during the passage of the Finance Bill because that has already been acknowledged.

The Minister mentioned that he would not use the word "guilty". Obviously, he is proud of his record, but it is one that has benefitted multinationals - actually, only a small number of them, as to say otherwise would be unfair to the majority of multinationals - with aggressive tax planning. It has ensured that their shareholders reap the benefits of money that should be reaped by Irish taxpayers and invested in our economy to deal with our issues.

The Minister stated that I would not acknowledge employment levels, but of course I will acknowledge that we have the most people working ever. We have the largest number of people in the State since the Famine, so that would have been the case in any event, but there have been major advances. I also recognise that the Minister's policy has resulted in 100,000 workers being at risk of poverty. Many workers have if-and-when contracts and so on. If they happened to be working in Donegal, they would have the least disposable income in the State because of the type of policy being advanced. The Minister might respond to these points.

An issue mentioned in the CSRs report relates to the Government's new venture of the so-called rainy day fund, an idea that was first floated by Fianna Fáil during its election campaign in order to shed its image of being financially reckless. Let us forget that it drove the economy off the cliff and so forth. Under the policy, the deposit was originally supposed to be €1 billion but is now €500 million, and the policy was only meant to be introduced when we achieved the medium-term objective but it will now happen in advance of that. According to the CSRs report, it is unclear how the design of the rainy day fund could ensure that it is truly countercyclical. How will the Minister ensure it is countercyclical?