Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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I too welcome the officials to the meeting this afternoon. The issue definitely falls under EU scrutiny because the Government has made it clear that as a country we are opposed to the financial transaction tax. It is clear that approximately 60% of the countries within the EU share that position. We should not have any insecurity in that regard.

To follow on from the previous question, it is noteworthy that a large number of eurozone countries are proceeding with the FTT. It would have to be a corollary of the argument that if the reason we are not proceeding with it is that if we did we would lose jobs then there must be potential to attract jobs by virtue of the fact that we will be one of a small group of eurozone countries that will not have such a tax.

I watched a British parliamentary committee grilling three chief executives from Google, Amazon and Starbucks. Specific mention was made of this country's corporation tax and the fact that they were appalled that those companies were paying their corporation tax in Ireland. Amazon is based in Cork and Google is in Dublin. It seemed to me that they were very much speaking out of both sides of their mouth because when it comes to a FTT, they are more than happy to protect their own companies that are based in London. I hope we would never see reputable companies abused in an Oireachtas committee in the way that happened to those companies. They are more than welcome to continue to move en masse from the United Kingdom to this country.

In regard to the proposed proportionality of the revenue that could be gleaned from a financial transaction tax, it is said that it would be shared between the EU and the countries concerned. What is the proposed proportionate distribution between the European Union and the country the tax is generated from?