Dr. Conor O'Toole:

I have not done any specific research on alternative taxation measures which need to be introduced at present. However, a couple of things are worth reinforcing from the Deputy's questions. One is the overreliance on corporation tax. We have seen corporation tax explode to approximately 30% of total revenue. A very small number of firms are contributing the majority of that corporation tax. The real risk is that if corporate-specific shocks happen to one or two of those individual firms and they lose profitability or move their operations around the globe, because these are hugely globalised firms, that could have a major knock-on impact on the Irish budget.

The key thing for us is trying to think about that overreliance and what we do with those windfall gains we are getting from the corporation tax receipts. Our suggestion would be to funnel more of them into the investment funds. The net contributions, I understand, are in and around €6 billion to the funds per annum, which is probably half of the windfall gains or less. Putting more of those windfall gains into the funds would certainly be advisable to store up that wealth for the future.

I do not know if any of the other witnesses wish to come in on the tax measures.