Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The reason I will not accept the amendment, but I am open to looking at how I can provide further information if Deputies so require, is because of how much work we have already done with the Oireachtas on this issue. When the issue first developed the Department, as it is required to do, sent a comprehensive set of scrutiny notes to the Oireachtas. Subsequent to this, officials from the Department and the Revenue Commissioners appeared before the committee to outline how the digital sales tax would operate. We have already submitted a report to the committee on this issue. We have already done what the amendment is asking me to do.

Committee members may be aware the Houses of the Oireachtas, following us submitting the information the amendment is looking for, issued reasoned opinions on the draft directives that they breach the principle of subsidiarity. In terms of providing information and reports, officials from the Department and the Revenue Commissioners have come before the committee. We supplied all of the information asked for and subsequently we supplied that information in written format. We have done what the amendment asks us to do. If there is further information that committee members want me to supply I am very happy to do so because this is a very important area.

Before we get into a debate on the substantive issue itself, I want to correct the record in several important areas. The only French offer I received is that issued in public to me on Tuesday morning when the Minister, Mr. Le Maire, invited me to go for a beer with him. That is the only offer I have received. I want to be very clear about this because there has been a lot of speculation about it and I want the committee to be assured of this. Deputy Burton said this measure would raise many billions of euro. She used the word "billions" in respect of the UK. The amount of revenue the UK Government has put against this for 2020 is £400 million. That is not billions. To put this in context, for us £400 million is roughly equivalent, for the sake of argument, to the value in euro of between £30 million and £40 million. It is very important that we are clear on the scale of revenue the UK Government is looking to raise through this measure.

I also acknowledge that the taxing landscape for digital companies is going to change. I expect that will happen. The question is the safest way in which that will happen. From my point of view and from our point of view as an open, small economy, when we have seen major change like this happen in the past, it has been through the OECD. This has happened in terms of the base erosion and profit shifting, BEPS, process for other major corporate tax changes that have taken place.

It is my strong view that if a digital tax were to happen, with Europe making changes in isolation without a global consensus on the issue, there would be the potential for trade consequences from this, and there would be the potential for international tax co-operation in this area to be affected. If either of those two scenarios were to happen, this would pose very significant challenges for Ireland.

I believe change will happen and, as part of that, there could be various consequences for Ireland. The safest way in which this can happen is the way it has happened in the past, which is through the OECD. The committee may be aware that the OECD has indicated that it will be publishing a report on this area sooner than it had originally indicated. Intense work is already going on in this area as we speak. Deputy Burton will be aware, if she looks at all of the issues that were navigated via the OECD in the past, that this offers the best vehicle within which we look to see change happen in this area. I believe change will happen, and the safest way through which that change can happen is through the OECD.

I note that in the debate on the matter last Tuesday, and I have been involved in this for more a year, we saw a number of other countries express opposition to the current Commission proposal for the reasons I outlined. Significantly, we saw countries that were in favour of this proposal being implemented begin to outline a whole array of technical issues that they wanted to be resolved. For those of us who have been involved in this before, those technical issues are considerable and would have significant consequences for us.

To reiterate, this is going to be a new area of change. As Deputy Burton was talking about the area of artificial intelligence, I was reminded of what the founder of Microsoft said recently that robots should be taxed. These are the kinds of debates that are going to happen.