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

I will deal with the different points that have been put to me. First, I did say that corporate tax is a tax on profit. I said that and made that clear. I stand over what I said. Looking at the average level of tax on income versus the average level of tax on profit, because of changes that have taken place in our tax code, the average level of tax large companies are paying on their profit is ahead of the average income tax low-income workers are paying. That is my argument and I think it is an important argument of equity. I want to go back to Deputy Boyd Barrett's point. If the cleaner he referred to is earning €20,000, the average income tax the cleaner pays is 5.6%. On average, large companies pay corporate tax that is a multiple of that. That is the way it should be. I stand by that argument and I have made clear that corporate tax is paid on profit.

Deputy Doherty's spoke about commitments we gave in 2016 and 2017. I am happy to debate this with him. He gave a commitment to an energy price cap a few weeks ago and I do not hear him talk about that any more.