Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I have questions for the Minister on three issues, namely, double taxation agreements, the OECD position on corporation tax rates and, briefly, the summer economic statement. On double tax agreements, many people are of the view that if someone is working in two countries, he or she cannot be paying tax in both and that there is a need for an arrangement to be put in place as a result. In practice down through the years, however, double tax arrangements, in essence, facilitated large corporations in reducing the amount of tax they paid to a particular state, opting to shift profits to the state where tax is paid at a lower rate and saving themselves considerable sums of money in so doing. I recognise that arrangements have been put in place to try to cut across that, but they have not succeeded 100% or anything like it. Will the Minister comment on the extent to which large corporations might be able to continue to shift profits and pay tax at the lower rate? Does he consider this still to be a major problem and is he of the view that the steps that have been taken are in any way mitigating against it? I ask him to reply to those questions before I move on to the other points.