Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With the exception of a gap of just over two years, I have been a member of this committee for many years. One of the unfortunate aspects of our discussion every year is that it is nearly always dominated by the discussion of this area, the risk and everything. It seems everybody latches onto that, meaning that some of the other messages get lost within it. If I had more time, I would like to explore some of the other messages because I believe that within the constraints of what we used to call the envelope, there are plenty of opportunities for a range of actions to be taken by Government. I know it is not the job of IFAC to prescribe what Government does, but we can cover and have successfully covered everything, including the critical importance of providing a tax break to people who need it as well as funding services and getting that balance right.

There is one aspect of this cliff edge we always talk about regarding the tax payments of multinational companies. I believe the former head of IDA Ireland recently said that there is a very substantial investment by the multinational sector in Ireland, including some of the companies, for want of a better description, that might be highlighted and the ones that make very substantial payments. We are inclined to think of it all vanishing in one go as if we were back in 2008 when everything fell off. Is it the view of IFAC that over a period of years we would see a ratcheting back because we have a physical presence operation as well as being a place where things are booked, profits are shown, taxes originate and so on?

It is important to recognise that the multinational sector is a very deep and developed sector that has probably taken 20 years to develop in this jurisdiction. While there may be international legal changes regarding taxation that would adjust the overall amount that is payable to the State, there is no indication that it is likely to fall off a cliff in the next 12 to 24 months yet every single time, our budget discussion seems to end up being dominated by it. I think Professor McMahon or his predecessors have come in and had this conversation with members of the committee almost every time. If we were looking at it, does Professor McMahon have an indication as to what the likely outcome would be regarding how it would scale back, what the percentages would be and what core corporation tax would remain at even in an economic downturn or the projected changes to international taxation?