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

Does the Taoiseach not believe it time to end the cover-up in which he and his spin doctors are engaged over the growing scandal of corporation tax avoidance by multinationals? Is it not a fact that he is trying to throw mud in the eyes of the public, Deputies and his European partners in a way that will do immense damage to the international reputation about which, as he has told us many times, he cares so much? The facts are coming out. As some of us have asserted for some time, as has become apparent to our European partners, as was put to the Taoiseach at the European Council meeting and as has been discussed in the US Senate, Ireland is a tax haven and is facilitating a staggering level of tax dodging by significantly wealthy multinationals.

The latest evidence came today. Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, a company registered in Ireland, made €1.8 billion in profit but paid 0% in tax. If it had paid 12.5%, we would have received €235 million, almost as much as the Government is planning to take out of the pockets of public sector workers. If Apple had paid 12.5%, we would have received more than €2 billion for the Exchequer. All we get, however, is sleight of hand whereby the Taoiseach claims that our rules are different because a company must be controlled and managed in Ireland. With a nod and a wink, we have agreed this little trick with the multinationals. Our light-touch corporate tax rules allow them to dodge billions or tens of billions of euro in corporate tax obligations at the expense of the taxpayer, who is being savaged by austerity, at the expense of tax fairness and tax justice across the world and at the expense of Ireland's international reputation.

After what happened at the European Council meeting and the US Senate and given the emerging facts, does the Taoiseach not believe it is time to end the cover-up and to stop prostituting Ireland's tax system for the benefit of multinational corporations?

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