Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

No, I will not publish that text because I disagreed with it. Surely Deputy Martin did not expect a Taoiseach to go to a Council of Europe meeting and agree to raise our corporate tax rate? Is that what he expected me to do? I have no intention of doing that. Deputy Martin, rightly, supports that position. The House has given a firm commitment in that regard. The reason we do not have the interest rate reduction applied to us, which was agreed in principle, is because there was a demand that we would increase our corporate tax rate as a condition of that reduction. The leader has agreed in principle that a reduction should be applied to the countries in the ESFS bailout situation. We were not in it then because the stress tests were not completed on our banks. That responsibility was given to the Ministers for Finance. We have made some progress on that. We are not shifting from our corporate tax rate.

The European Commission published its paper in respect of a common, consolidated, corporate tax basis. I have no problem at all involving myself in a discussion on that but I do so from a position of having a healthy scepticism about it. It is a legal requirement of the Commission to produce its proposals for legislation. Governments in other countries have objected to that. I have made my position clear. The officials continue to talk. The Ministers for Finance continue to work on the matter and I hope they can bring it to a conclusion. When it is brought to a conclusion I hope Deputy Martin will welcome it and we will move on.

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