Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

Was the Taoiseach in any way uneasy, to say the least, when the European Council meeting moved on to a discussion on taxation? I note from the communiqué issued after the summit that measures to fight tax evasion, fraud, etc., were discussed "in order to protect revenues and ensure public confidence in the fairness and effectiveness of tax systems." Leaving aside the issue of fraud for the moment, did the Taoiseach give an explanation in regard to the Irish tax system and mounting evidence to show this State is used as a taxation haven by many multinational corporations? I am not referring only to the hearings in the US Senate. On the day before the summit, the London editor of The Irish Times, the respected journalist, Mark Hennessy, pointed out that Marks & Spencer accounts for goods sold and handled in the United Kingdom through Ireland to avail of the 12.5% tax rate, in other words, to avoid paying significant tax in Britain. How can this mechanism be described as anything other than consistent with a tax haven?

I put it to the Taoiseach that the State is also a tax funnel in that it acts as a facilitator for transfusing revenues that are raised around the world, including in the poorest countries, through the tax mechanisms available in this State and onto places such as Bermuda. In the case of Apple, for example, which is a massive corporation, a tax mechanism known as the "double Irish" enabled the company to keep its international taxes to 3.2% of foreign profits in 2011, 2.2% in 2010 and single digits for the past half decade. These figures are taken from The New York Times. As a result of these mechanisms, the Apple corporation is sitting on $100 billion in accumulated profits.

Is the Taoiseach aware that development agencies and organisations such as, for example, Christian Aid have studied this matter in some detail and that they very convincingly highlight how this type of tax avoidance and minimisation of tax liability - with the help of the Irish taxation system - is cheating people who live in the poorest countries on Earth of resources which should be used to develop their societies? How can he stand over that type of activity, which is immoral by any standard? What did he say at the EU summit in respect of this matter or did he say anything? I am not asking him to just contradict some of the specific allegations that were made in the US Senator about a 2% deal, which, very possibly, are not correct. However, the substance is correct, namely, that the double-Irish mechanism and other instruments facilitate a huge minimisation of massive levels of tax liability by these most powerful corporations and that people in this country and throughout the world are thereby cheated of resources which could be used to develop their societies, create jobs and attract investment. If such investment were forthcoming, it would be possible to ensure that some of the 26 million people throughout the EU who, tragically, are unemployed could get back to work.

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