Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I do not have a problem with a Minister or the Government consulting anybody. I was referring to the fact that, according to the reports, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, was discussing the knowledge development box with multinationals and essentially seeking their approval.

He received very positive feedback. There have been many such meetings with key multinationals which are not happy that there is a move internationally to close down tax avoidance schemes, but it is not the job of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, or any other Minister, to reassure them that we will not go after more of their profits in tax and that is what it sounded like in the reports. It sounded like we were reassuring them. I wish the Government had engaged with the water charges protesters and asked them what they would like in the tax code and how they would like taxes to be levied. If it had, we would have a very different tax system.