Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to respond to Deputy Ó Broin by talking about everything we have been doing since 2015, when Ireland was the first country to move on BEPS, anti-tax avoidance, profit-shifting and all the quasi-legal practices that some companies were engaging in. It has to be said that not every company was doing these things. We moved before anybody else did. We moved before we were obliged to move because we felt it was the right thing to do. Ireland takes very seriously its responsibility to prevent these activities and to help developing countries. Ireland was a developing country, in terms of our GDP ratios, 40 or 50 years ago. Our average EU ratio was significantly under the EU spend. In a European space and in European terms, we have benefitted from our European partners benefitting us via the EU. This multilateral convention is doing the same thing. It will ensure companies that are unscrupulously trying to avoid tax will not be allowed to get away with it. That is what this is about.

I said clearly in my opening remarks that this is a way of updating 3,000 international treaties in one fell swoop. We cannot make the countries that have not ratified the convention do so but, as we have said, we have a responsibility to go to those countries to update the treaties bilaterally. I expect that approximately 100 countries, or half the countries on the planet, are involved in the multilateral convention. I reiterate that we cannot make countries do this. Different jurisdictions move at different paces. We have said that we take our responsibilities very seriously. If we have to, we will go to the various countries one by one to adopt the treaties bilaterally. We feel this is a better way of doing it. As I have said, eight or nine of these processes have been finished. We expect, or hope, to finish our process sooner rather than later. This will ensure companies that are unscrupulously avoiding tax and thereby taking resources from people in other jurisdictions who need them most - I am not just talking about Ghana - do not get away with it.