Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

When some of us on this side of the House rail against the austerity the Minister is imposing on working people and the vulnerable, he always asks us for an alternative, implying there is none. I almost felt sorry for him earlier when he said we are never helpful. Let me be helpful by offering him some alternatives. The case of just one company based in Shannon, one of the most profitable companies operating in the State, points to the alternative. GE Capital Aviation Funding, based in Shannon, earned €606 million in profit last year and paid but €379,000 in tax. This represents an effective tax rate of 0.5%. If the company had paid at a rate of 12.5%, it would have paid €95 million in tax. This would cover almost all the savage cuts that the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, imposed over recent weeks on home help and mental health services, and which he attempted to impose on the disabled. I refer to just one company that is paying tax at such a negligible level, and which is not even paying at the standard corporation tax rate of 12.5%. How much more revenue will be available if we force the corporations in the State to pay at a rate of 12.5%, which they are not paying at present?

Last week, I asked the Minister a parliamentary question on the effective tax rate being paid by companies in the State but I did not receive a proper answer. I was told the amount was difficult to calculate. Dr. Jim Stewart of the school or business studies in Trinity College estimates that companies in Ireland are paying corporation tax on profits at a rate of between 4% and 7%. Therefore, will the Minister ensure that all companies pay at the effective rate of 12.5%? If they did so, it would generate, by any estimate, several billion euro in extra revenue for the State, thereby eliminating the need to impose brutal, austere cuts on low- and middle-income earners, families on social welfare and the vulnerable.

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