Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Cody for his presentation. I was interested to hear about the black economy. There is a story in Cork about Revenue sending two female employees onto a building site to sell GAA tickets in order to gather names and addresses. That is going back a good few years. I believe it was quite a successful operation. That was well over 20 years ago.

We have got a detailed breakdown of the taxes. The big one is the increase in corporation tax receipts from €15.323 billion to €23.837 billion. A question arises in light of the way tax will have to be paid by big companies from now on and the fact that the rate of corporation tax is going to increase. What effect is that likely to have on that figure of €23 billion? Is it too early to estimate? Another question follows on from that. It is reported that up to ten companies are paying quite a substantial portion of that corporation tax. We therefore need to be mindful of the risk of these companies suddenly deciding to cease operations in our country. What is our position on that?