Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister that the profiling of tax returns by his Department has been impressive, and I have said that personally to individuals within the Department. It is great to see that targets set 12 months in advance are being achieved and, hopefully, those targets will continue to be achieved during the course of November.

The Minister will be aware, and we discussed it during the last round of questions, that there is much discussion in other countries about Ireland's corporation tax, not the level of the tax but the fact some corporations pay a very low effective tax rate. Google, for example, is reported to be paying an effective tax rate of 3% here. The Parliament at Westminster has had investigations into this and has discussed the system we allow to operate here, and the Americans have done the same.

Without a doubt, the Dáil has unanimously sought to protect this, or if it is not unanimous, at least Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Labour and Fine Gael have agreed that the corporation tax rate should remain the same. However, is the Minister concerned that major multinational companies are only paying an effective tax rate of 3% in some cases? I have tried to ascertain figures from the Department but they have not been forthcoming, although I accept the Department is considering issues around their release. There are systems within Irish tax law which allow for the siphoning off of profits in the form of royalties to other companies, which avoid paying tax on corporations that are based or headquartered here. Is the Minister concerned about the issue or does he have proposals to address it?

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