Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the latter issue first, of course, Deputy Ross is correct. When we came into government, it was then French President Sarkozy who was raising this issue on a fairly persistent basis that Ireland should do something on its corporate tax rate if it wanted to close the gap between tax and expenditure. Mr. Sarkozy is no longer there and our corporate tax rate remains. We are in agreement with the French Government and others who believe it is important to have a competitive approach to taxation policy. That issue is not one that is regularly brought to our attention. Other countries will attempt to move on other issues, for instance, the financial transaction tax, FTT, on which a number of countries are moving, although whether they are moving all at the same time is an issue which I would be interested to debate with them at some point.

On the first issue, Deputy Ross is also correct in stating that President Obama, before he was elected five years ago, raised this issue. It did not seem to be an enormous priority in the first term. I suspect in the second term, because of the deficit position in the United States, he will take action to see how much profits can be repatriated. The issue was about the repatriation of profits, but that can be resolved in the United States. It can be resolved in an agreement between, presumably, the US Administration and Congress. Whether that agreement is to be forged is a matter of US domestic politics on which I am not able to comment, but in so far as the bilateral discussions between the US Administration and the Irish Government are concerned on this issue of the corporate tax rate or the repatriation of profits, it is a global issue for the United States. It is not specific to Ireland. That is the point I am raising. We can get too far ahead of ourselves on this, give too much attention to two members of Congress for their interesting observations and assume that such is the automatic view of the US Administration. That would be a dangerous presumption to make

See this speech in context