Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

In principle, the Irish Government's position is that if this could be introduced through the influence of the G20 on a worldwide basis, that would be acceptable. It is not the principle of the tax we object to, but its uneven operation through which we would end up having a tax in Dublin but not in London. Employment activity and jobs would move from Dublin to London, so our objections are more pragmatic than principled. After what happened in recent years, there is a strong case to be made for some imposition to be placed on the financial and banking industry so that it would make a contribution to the resolution of what happened. It is the unevenness of the application, however, which will cost us jobs. I am in the business of creating and defending Irish jobs, so I am not going to write off jobs in the Dublin financial services centre - where there are good jobs and high employment - because they might move to London due to the implementation of a particular tax.

Our position is that worldwide it is a reasonably good idea and we can go with that. We can also live with the idea of 27 EU member states having a financial transaction tax. However, we cannot live with 17 states imposing it and Ireland having to apply it, so that there would be a tax in Dublin but no similar tax in London. That is our position.

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