Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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I oppose Deputy Murphy's amendment for a number of reasons. To respond to Deputy Humphreys, there is no suggestion that we would speak to representatives of any multinational corporations before the Minister for Finance, officials from the Department of Finance, Revenue Commissioners and OECD and academic experts have appeared before the sub-committee. It is proposed to have these witnesses appear first and thereafter representatives of the multinational companies would come before the sub-committee. Despite the fact that I have been very open in stating I want representatives of some of the multinational companies that have been named in various hearings to come before the sub-committee, I would also like representatives of multinational companies that have not been accused of anything to come before us.

To get to the nub of the issue, the joint committee has asked a sub-committee to do a report on corporation tax as it applies to multinational companies. The origin of this request was the motion the joint committee passed in November. The sub-committee's hearings can be structured and shaped in different ways. International issues arise regarding companies located in Ireland which are aggressively involved in evading tax. That is the reality. We are now asking a sub-committee to do a report without allowing it to question any multinational company before the report is submitted to the joint committee. If we proceed with this approach, the process will be a farce.

All of us wish to protect jobs and I agree with Deputy Dara Murphy's comments on the need to do so. Sinn Féin does not seek an increase in corporate tax but we must deal with realities. We know there are two companies which are incorporated in Ireland and not tax resident in this State or anywhere else in the world. One of them does not have any employees in the State and even if we were to raise corporation tax to the roof, we would not get any money from it because it does not pay a cent of tax here or elsewhere in the world. This is at a time when people are being put to the pin of their collar by cuts and austerity.