Mr. Sorley McCaughey:

I do not want to get involved in a back and forth argument about the Department of Finance or the Department of Foreign Affairs saying this and we are saying that.

It is just not the case, however, that the issues we have identified have been addressed, and it is not a time lag issue. These are things that existed before the spillover analysis and that exist now. For example, the manner in which we treat royalty payments that flow out of Ireland has not changed at all, before or after the analysis. We barely apply withholding tax to royalty payments that leave this country. There are very few instances in which we apply withholding tax to them. It makes Ireland very attractive as a conduit country in that case. We know this is an integral part of the ongoing double Irish and single malt structures. That is one example. Another example is that the treaties Ireland has signed since the spillover analysis was published are still classified as regressive from the point of view of developing countries. It seems slightly strange to claim that the issues we have identified have been addressed when they are classed as being regressive from the perspective of developing countries.

They are just two issues from the top of my head, but there are many others. The fundamentals of Irish corporation tax policy have not altered, before or after the spillover analysis. Perhaps some of the recommendations of the Coffey report will be implemented. That would address some of the things we raise, particularly regarding our transfer pricing regulation legislation. That was identified in the Coffey report as weak and not up BEPS standard. It allows for some pretty creative shifting of money between multinationals. If that was brought up to OECD BEPS standard, we would have a better chance of getting a more accurate evaluation of intellectual property as it is being transferred.

Dr. Killian has spoken about a rolling spillover analysis. That is a fantastic idea. It is important. That is how the spillover analysis was always envisaged as working. There is another thing I would say which is not in any way a criticism but an argument for carrying out a subsequent spillover analysis. Since the last year that the researchers looked at, which was 2012, there has been a significant spike in trade between Ireland and some developing countries, in particular Ghana, with which we signed a double tax agreement, Cabo Verde and Nepal. There are significant levels of trade between Ireland and those countries. That was not known to the researchers at the time. Now it is, so one would like to think that this would prompt them to go back and review those trade flows to see if they come up with anything interesting.

Deputy Crowe raised the Global Ireland initiative and reputation. He is correct. That is something we spoke to in our presentation. I am not privy to the inner workings or thinking of the Department of Finance or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but I suspect it is very much on their minds reputationally at a time when Ireland needs friends in Europe and internationally in a way it has rarely done previously. The constant and ongoing criticism of Irish tax policy, merited or not, is damaging to the country as it moves to develop strategic alliances with other countries. I would not like to think that it will come back to bite us, but any measure we can adopt to mitigate the negative reputational damage that our tax code is creating would be a very sensible idea. It goes beyond the spillover analysis to a key and obvious thing we could do to demonstrate our credentials internationally. There are also issues around transparency that the Department of Finance resists. The public accessibility of country-by-country reports of companies is something we have advocated for almost ten years. These country-by-country reports should be publicly available so the media, civil society and researchers can know what companies are doing in each of the jurisdictions in which they operate. The Department of Finance does not wish to make that publicly available. That runs contrary to any kind of good sense. This is an opportunity to say that we want to be the gold standard of transparency when it comes to the disclosure of tax operations by companies.

There are other issues around transparency that we have advocated and lobbied on for years and that the Department of Finance has been slow to adopt. Again, it would be sensible to adopt them when it is constantly in the firing line for its tax policy.