Mr. Niall Cody:

I would rather speak in generalities about international tax. I was appointed to the board of the Revenue Commissioners on 1 February 2012. We had the EU Presidency for the first half of 2013 and until March 2013, international tax was a subject for tax journals and occasional business articles. In March 2013, the environment changed. We had an EU Presidency in which we wondered if we would have enough business to keep going. The issues surround base erosion and profit shifting, BEPS, took off, along with the European Commission efforts in this regard, and international tax has been the front page story since March 2013. The public accounts committees here and in the UK have dealt with it and the finance committee here had a sub-committee examining international and corporation tax. International tax, tax avoidance and international mismatches that allow multinationals to minimise their tax is a serious story. Ireland is part of that but it is not the cause.

We have invested significant resources in people dealing with international tax. We made a commitment at the start of the BEPS project to be fully involved. For a small country with a small administration, we talk about resources that are to be dedicated to risk-based audit. We are punching above our weight in solving the issue and it must be done on an international basis. Other countries comment on what happens in Ireland but a detailed study of what they do may also show issues. This is a competitive world and we, as the Revenue Commissioners, implement the tax Acts as they are.