Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will make one additional brief comment. That is morally repugnant. Aside from the morality, Ms Gunnell is making a pragmatic argument that these people would not come here otherwise. She has mentioned other jurisdictions with which we are competing and which have similar tax break schemes for these incredibly well-paid people. Has the Irish Tax Institute carried out a comparison with countries that do not have such tax breaks for incredibly well-paid people which shows definitively that they do less well in getting skilled people into the various sectors where they are needed? The only way we could judge the matter at that level and in the terms by which Ms Gunnell is defending itand I find those figures unacceptable at almost any levelis to determine whether countries which do not provide these tax breaks have problems in getting access to necessary skills. The only way to sustain that argument is to show that a given jurisdiction which does not have a special assignee relief programme providing these tax breaks has real problems in getting these people in.