Professor Niamh Moloney:

Our job was to answer a very big question. We were specifically asked to take a medium- to long-term perspective. We were specifically asked to look at how to ensure that economic growth continues and support prosperity and employment looking into the future. That is challenging. We stepped back and looked at where the systemic risks were in the system. Clearly, and the report goes through this, we are in a position now where there are very strong corporate tax receipts but our lens is looking out five, ten and 15 years, and when you look at it that way, we are looking at structural change. We are looking at structural, permanent change to Irish society. It is mapping onto what I completely recognise is a very particular corporation tax context right now and trying to map that onto five, ten and 15 years out. When we look at the demographics they are very striking. The thing is about the demographics, these are certainties so we know that by 2050 we will have two people working for every one over 65 years whereas now we have four people working for every one over 65 years. That is a real structural change to how we need to spend the State’s money and how we need to raise revenue. It is looking ahead of the next two or three years into the future and making those permanent structural changes to the tax system so it can cope with that. That is why our recommendations are around structure; it is around the base and whether we can pull on all the levers we will need to pull on into the future while of course recognising that right now we are in a very particular fiscal position. On the corporation tax position specifically, the almost systemic nature of it where now one in five euro comes from corporation tax and I think we are up to 57% of the corporation tax base is coming from ten companies, you can see how very quickly that could cause difficulties.