Mr. Niall Cody:

It is the unanimous position of Revenue. Obviously, we discussed the case. The investigation started in mid-2013. It has gone on and there have been truckloads of documentation toing and froing. There has been a significant level of correspondence between Revenue and the Commission. One thing we did is that we decided at the very start to co-operate fully because as a regulatory body ourselves that is what we expect others to do with us. We gave considerable information and we took part in meetings and discussions. At our own board and management advisory committee level we briefed people on where we are.

On Tuesday I was taken by what the Commissioner said when she talked about her responsibility under the treaty. Equally, we have a responsibility under the tax Acts and the authority given to us by the Oireachtas to implement the legislation. That is what we did. We implemented Irish tax law. That is what the people who were involved in the individual opinions and who deal with opinions of multinationals seek to do at all times. There is no question among people in Revenue that we implemented Irish law. That is not to say that everybody, including me, is happy with multinational tax avoidance. We have invested significant resources, which I told the committee previously about, in the context of changes we made two years ago setting up our international branch and the work we do in terms of playing a part in relation to tackling multinational tax avoidance that is significantly above our punching power.