John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Having sat on this committee previously, it is up to it to accept the IFAC report. That is what IFAC was set up to do. Mr. Seamus Coffey often repeated his predecessor's words that IFAC was instituted in part to institutionalise in the system the memory of the crash so that the same mistakes would not be repeated.

I say that in a non-partisan way and as a non-political statement. It is how we work out from that. This is advice from the council and I do not think it should be ignored or that we should look for ways out. I go back to the infamous words that revenue buoyancy will rescue us from all of these things, even though the argument is circular in nature. The warning is coming early enough.

A lot of questions were answered and I found this session very useful. The reading material was also very useful. If Ireland had to adopt a 15% corporation tax rate as a minimum, can the witnesses give us some kind of narrative around what they think the impact of that might be? What revenue would it raise? What impact might it have on companies that seek to locate here?

Corporation tax is not the only contribution of such companies to Ireland. When I was on South Dublin County Council about eight or nine companies were responsible for 75% to 80% of the county's commercial rates base and they all happened to be companies that paid corporation tax. If any of those companies decided to leave for any reason, it would not just hit the corporation tax base but also a whole load of other revenues often seen by the public. What would be the implications of a 15% corporation tax rate?