Mr. Jim Clarken:

I will be brief and I was happy with the Cathaoirleach's summation. In fairness to the people who asked questions, Deputies Durkan and Healy-Rae may have missed some of the earlier presentation where we talked about experience in other countries where this has not led to a flight of capital. If they are happening right now, they are not leading to a flight of capital. We acknowledge that they were poorly designed in the past in other places and we need to find something. That is why it requires careful deliberation and discussion. It is now becoming something that is being rolled out in a number of countries. Because of the nature of technology and the nature of the way we can track money, it could be much more possible to ensure that there will not be a benefit to people fleeing elsewhere. This comes back to global tax alignment and global tax discussions.

On attracting business, we have done much work on corporation tax as well over the years and we do much work with multinationals. Multinational companies in Ireland will tell you the reason they are here is because the quality of the people, primarily. The educated workforce, the access to the European market, the infrastructure, the Government supports and all the rest is a primary driver of that multinational investment in Ireland and that high-calibre employment investment. The Deputies might remember that. The summation was helpful.

Finally, on the windfall taxes, we had also been looking for windfall taxes for the pharma industry, which was supported by Government and taxpayers’ money during the pandemic and benefited tremendously from what happened subsequently.

The time is right for the conversation. We appreciate our opportunity to discuss with the committee today. I thank members for their time.