Mr. John McCarthy:

In response to the Deputy's first point, she is absolutely right in that she and I did have a discussion. However, it was about the 26% GDP growth rate in 2015, rather than tax. There are absolutely huge communication challenges around that, and it has caused us some reputational damage. There is no doubt about that. Ireland's GDP is perhaps the most volatile of any country in the world. During the crisis, we fell much more than anybody else, and we have rebounded much faster than anybody else. Even the components of GDP are incredibly volatile, that is, investment, exports and so forth. There are lots of these issues.

The second part of the Deputy's question may be more for colleagues in the Revenue Commissioners. We know the total corporate profitability in the economy. One of the reasons for the surge in corporation tax in 2015, when it went up by €2.3 billion, was a surge in corporate profitability. However, corporate profitability does not immediately translate into tax liability because of capital allowances, losses carried forward, the €200 billion which, I think, is still outstanding because of trade charges, and so forth.

This means that the walk from profits to taxes is not simple. When we try to project GDP we base tax yield on corporate profitability. We run projections in line with that basis. We also interact with our colleagues in the large cases division, some of whom are sitting in the Gallery, because there will be issues specific to individual firms. We will never be told what the firm is. Under the legal arrangements Mr. Cody has talked about, we are not allowed to know. We will, however, be told that there may be repayments pending or a big payment to be made. We take such judgments into account.