Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the chance to speak once again on the question of corporation tax. I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, well in his new brief. I wish him many nights of providing Front Bench cover. He might even take the odd Adjournment debate matter, if he really misbehaves. I wish him well in his new post in this realm and in the realm of public sector transformation. I will be happy to give him any assistance he requires.

It is only a few months since the 30th Dáil passed a similar motion in complete support of Ireland's corporation tax rate, ahead of the last challenge to it. It is fitting that the 31st Dáil should do so again. We are merely reaffirming the views of those who elected us in the recent general election and who spoke in 2009 during the second referendum on the Lisbon treaty. At the time, the legal guarantees of our corporation tax rate were fully supported by President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel. Very little has changed since in our relationship with France and Germany or in the importance of our corporation tax rate, not just to Ireland but to the European Union as a whole. Many of the companies which locate in Ireland make a choice between locating in Ireland or outside the European Union. The loss of employment to Ireland would be a loss to the entire European Union.

This morning I heard a report on "Morning Ireland" on next weekend's elections in Baden-Württemberg in Germany where Chancellor Merkel's party is on the verge of losing power after 40 years. Apart from feeling some affinity with her political travails, I found the report interesting when business people, as opposed to politicians, were interviewed. One business person interviewed was a manufacturer and he mentioned our corporation tax regime as an issue. However, it was mentioned in a way that made it clear that it was not having an impact on his business. What was having an impact on his business and ability to trade in foreign markets was the high labour rate in Germany and the costs associated with the various rates. We have had to make huge sacrifices in the past three years in adjusting our labour costs, in both the private and public sectors. To hear someone in another country which has not made these sacrifices try to use our corporation tax rate as a reason to push more sacrifices on us was slightly frustrating.

Our corporation tax rate only opens doors for us. We have to prove on so many other fronts that in Ireland we are able to attract the kinds of industries to which Deputy Kitt referred. We are not the leading player in the pharmaceutical sector purely by dint of a 12.5% corporation tax rate. We are the leading player because of the strength of our education system, the flexibility of employment law, our infrastructure and the level of investment in third and fourth level education. Our strength in the food sector owes much to the traditions of the agricultural community, the investment it has made in its products and research into new products. It is not the 12.5% corporation tax rate that maintains Kerrygold, Avonmore or other food multinationals. If they were not trading out of Ireland, they would not be trading out of any EU post.

This weekend, no matter how much pressure the Taoiseach is put under by his friends, there must be absolutely no doubt that our 12.5% rate will remain. If we even commit to a review or some political compromise, we will place a question mark against the rate and put at risk investment that has been hard won in recent years by the IDA and the Irish teams in many countries throughout the world.

One of the best decisions of the new Government is to incorporate the trade function of the old Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation with those of the Department of Foreign Affairs. We are blessed with top class officials representing Ireland abroad, whether in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Tourism Ireland, Enterprise Ireland or any of our other agencies. We bandy the word "quango" about, but we ignore the very good work undertaken. It is their work that attracts companies to Ireland and entices them to come through the door, but to open the door we need firm commitments and clarity regarding the 12.5% rate.

Let us not fool ourselves. There are forces at work to reduce our reliance on this rate. What will be next if these forces get their way on corporation tax? As someone who has been very supportive of the European project for many years, I find it difficult to ask that question, but it must be asked. It is clear that our cost model does not suit the European cost model. The sacrifices this country has made to reduce costs and increase competitiveness, particularly in the past three years, do not suit a model that has not made these sacrifices. If we give way on corporation tax, we may be opening the gates to other changes that will be to the detriment of the economy.

The last election was about jobs and stemming the flow of emigration which is haunting the country again. It was about responding to the fears of parents and grandparents who were seeing the next generation leave, having made huge sacrifices for their education. We must do everything to protect the 250,000 jobs in our multinational companies and the hundreds of thousands of other jobs dependent on them. We must do everything to create and protect the conditions to attract more jobs, while ensuring we have a sufficiently robust domestic economy to support the creation of homegrown jobs that will survive in that economy.

Any give-in, in whatever circumstance, on our corporation tax rate will immediately impact on employment, market sentiment and domestic consumption which is already at a very weak rate. We must be resolute this weekend. The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, must be absolutely resolute that there will be no give on corporation tax or any of the conditions we have created to attract inward investment. In a European Union focused response to the debt crisis faced by the European Community, we must emphasise the fact that Ireland's corporation tax regime creates employment in Europe as a whole that otherwise might not be created. Our corporation tax rate opens the door for Ireland. It is the other things we provide that lead to the creation of jobs. If the doors are not opened, jobs will be lost to Europe.

This is not a time for optics or false fights. This is a real fight. We give the Government every support in its fight this weekend, for all the reasons I have outlined and that will be outlined by other Deputies. Ministers must not come back with any sense of compromise or doubt over the corporation tax rate. To do so would damage our economic prospects even further.

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