Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is most welcome to the committee's proceedings today. I can assure the Minister that I will give him as much time as he needs within the parameters the Chair will allow to answer the questions I have for him and the observations that I will make. I will try to be relatively brief. I wish to focus on the issue of corporation tax and the impacts that proposed reforms will inevitably have on the Exchequer over the coming period. I note with interest the remarks made by the Minister to Deputy Durkan earlier on regarding the €2 billion figure, which has been the received wisdom in terms of the extrapolated potential loss to the Exchequer essentially around pillar 1, to which we have fully signed up.

I think it would be useful, based on the remarks in response to questions to me from the International Federation of Accountants, IFAC, yesterday, if we might reassess the figures in terms of what potentially could be lost to the Exchequer and what the position might be over the next period, if we do in fact sign up both to pillars 1 and 2 of the OECD process. I draw the Minister's attention to remarks made by Feargal O'Rourke of PwC on RTÉ Radio 1 on Tuesday. He seemed to suggest that the figures the Minister has cited and we have all cited repeatedly in respect of the potential €2 billion loss were in fact developed before there was any real OECD articulation of any new global minimum effective rate of "at least 15%".

First, does the Minister believe that we are at a point where we need to reassess those figures? Related to that, if indeed we do sign up to to pillar 2 of the process in time, does he think we may end up losing something on the swings and gaining from the roundabouts, to borrow a phrase? My final question in respect of the corporation tax process is whether the Minister sees a landing zone on the horizon for Ireland that would allow him and give him the confidence to sign Ireland up fully to pillar 2 of the process, given what he knows at this point.