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

I will deal with each of the questions in turn. What are the countries that will benefit from this? It would tend to be economies that have a low number of companies headquartered in them, that have large markets in which a lot of consumption would occur and that would have a rate that is higher than 15%. In those circumstances, they will benefit from the reallocation of taxing rights into their economies because one will see a movement of taxing rights into where the consumption happens as opposed to where the value is registered. The other countries that will benefit from this are developing economies. They will benefit from a combination of both the rate changing and the reallocation of taxing rights. Developing economies have been among the largest champions of this process so far.

With regard to those who are associated with tax justice and making the case for that agenda, the reaction has split into two different camps. One camp is willing to recognise that an agreement that covers so much of the world's economy and that gains agreement to a minimum effective tax rate is very significant. Even if they are disappointed with some elements of the agreement, some of those who have been calling for progress in tax justice have recognised the fact that a global agreement has been reached. There are others, however, and I will not name them, who have been disappointed by this outcome. They believe that this process should have yielded a higher minimum effective tax rate for the world.

Regarding companies that are below €750 million annual turnover, as long as they are below that threshold here in Ireland they will continue to pay the 12.5% and will not be subject to those parts of this agreement. As to whether people will be pressing for more, I expect they will. There will be those who, because they are disappointed with the outcome of this process, will be championing another process to take its place. However, I expect that we will spend so long actually implementing the agreement we have and then allowing it to be consistently implemented across the world that I believe there is a low possibility of another global process on corporate tax happening at present. We have a generation of work ahead of us to implement this agreement. Efforts in respect of international tax co-operation are more likely to happen elsewhere, particularly with regard to climate.

As regards those who are pressing the case of aid for trade, I expect that many of them are reasonably satisfied with this agreement because they will expect that their countries will be able to benefit in revenue from it.