Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
EU State Aid Rules - Investigation into Preferential Tax Rulings: European Commissioner for Competition
12:30 pm
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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That was not my question. I was simply asking, from her investigation, if it was Ms Vestager's understanding Apple had asked for a particular ruling, to which Revenue agreed. I think she said that in circumstances where state aid might possibly have been given, governments or revenue authorities might ask the European Union whether a ruling had breached state aid rules.
Did the Irish Government or the Revenue, at the time when they made these rulings, ask any opinion of the European Union as to whether these rulings could possibly breach state aid? Following her ruling, does the Commissioner know if the Irish Revenue Commissioners are still calculating and allowing the allocation of Apple taxes to entities which the Commission has concluded they should not? In other words, is the practice continuing or has it changed?