Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would like to go back to what the Minister of State said at the outset. He suggested that countries will have the ability to opt in or out of certain provisions. When he spoke about why we might opt out of certain provisions or make certain choices, he said that the options we are not adopting "are primarily technical in nature and not relevant to Ireland's tax systems". If Article 12, for example, is not relevant to Ireland's tax system, why not adopt it? It seems to me that it is not being adopted for some other reason, perhaps because there are concerns arising from it. The same point can be made about option B in Article 13. From our point of view, if we wanted to demonstrate that we are serious about the multilateral instrument, we would not simply accept minimum standards - we would accept the maximum standards in all cases, particularly when they affect us.

Perhaps the Minister of State missed the point I was trying to make about the bilateral agreement. It is obvious that it is much better to try to do this by means of multilateral agreements. The Government has said on the record that where multilateral agreements do not apply, and we are engaged in bilateral agreements, it will pursue a range of commitments to try to insert provisions which are about protecting our interests while doing the right thing for the people of the developing world. Christian Aid and other agencies have raised concerns. Deputy Cowen has also raised concerns. It seems to me that we are doing the same thing we did before by adopting relatively minimal aspects of these treaties in a primarily self-interested manner. As a result, we are perpetuating the problems that are contained in these treaties, as all of the non-governmental organisations in the developing world have told us. We will not be the losers in this scenario - the losers will be the vast majority of the citizens of Ghana and other countries who will be deprived of revenue. I am not going to press the matter. I do not think the Minister of State's answer has satisfactorily responded to the questions other Deputies have raised. We cannot support the motion for that reason.