Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

I discussed the tax haven issue with Secretary of the Treasury Geithner. Two taxation Bills have been introduced in the US Senate - one contains a list of 34 countries in which Ireland is not included and the other is based on a report prepared for the US Congress and released in December by the US Government Accountability Office, GAO. The GAO's determination is based on figures from the 1980s. The Irish ambassador to the US has written to the Department of the Treasury on our behalf expressing concerns about the matter of our inclusion in the report. We feel the inclusion is unjustified and we have set down the reasons for that. However, I took the opportunity to express the Government's view to the secretary on it.

This is not an ad hoc matter and a group in my Department is working on it. The ambassador, as our representative in the US, along with senior executives in the IDA will work ad infinitum to deal with this issue. The IDA's role is to work with companies who are also lobbying in the context of this legislation.

See this speech in context