Mr. Seamus Coffey:

There is no doubt that the receipts are concentrated in Ireland. I do not think there is a suggestion that the huge increase in corporation tax which took place in 2015 can be attributed to a single player. As the Deputy mentioned, it increased from €4.6 billion in 2014 to €6.9 billion in 2015. It looks like it will be €7.5 billion, or perhaps slightly more, in 2016. If one looks at the statistics that have been produced by Revenue, which include data by sector, one will see that there has been a fairly broad-based increase in the receipts across a number of sectors. The receipts are dominated by the manufacturing, financial services and information and communications sectors.

All three of those sectors grew but I am not sure whether one could place any one company in all three sectors to say that it caused the receipts to rise. It does look as though the increase is more broad but I still think it is probably concentrated in a small number of companies but the number is probably more than one. Perhaps the opportunity will arise for a committee of the Oireachtas to question a company on how much tax it paid in 2015.