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

The Taoiseach began by speaking about youth unemployment being discussed at the OECD meeting but he did not outline whether any concrete proposals came from the OECD regarding the scandal of the extent of youth unemployment throughout the European Union, particularly in the so-called peripheral states, the victims of austerity, where up to half the young people available for work are unemployed. Can he outline whether, apart from platitudes by the OECD establishment, there were any proposals for concrete investment in those societies that would lead to young people finding meaningful work and a decent future which the current system does not give them?

This also relates to the issue of corporation tax. I do not know if the Taoiseach reads the international financial press, but there have been articles about the massive extent of accumulated profits by major corporations that lie in banks and other financial institutions around the world. In the case of Europe, for example, an estimated €3 trillion is not invested by European corporations within the EU but is running around the banking system. That is because those corporations judge it is not sufficiently profitable for them to invest in infrastructure or new employment and jobs.

That begs the question of whether a different and new tax regime is needed, not just in this country but also throughout Europe. Those companies should be taxed at a much higher rate so that those funds, which in any case are earned by the hands and brains of working people around Europe, should be available for public investment, for example, in major infrastructural projects which are desperately needed in every European country. That would put literally millions of people to work.

Is that not a crying condemnation of the type of corporate tax regime that the Taoiseach and his Government insist on keeping in this country? The headline rate here is among the lowest in the EU. Nobody believes the Taoiseach or the institution of paid advisors when they say the effective rate is 11.9%. Everybody knows that there is a huge tax scam going on in this country as far as major corporations are concerned. Professor Stewart of Trinity College put the corporate tax rate between 2% and 3%, while Social Justice Ireland put it at 6.2%. If we are generous and say that the effective corporate tax rate is 8%, based on 2012 figures every percentage extra they would pay would be €525 million. Therefore if they paid the full rate of 12.5%, which is a derisory amount, it would be €2 billion extra.

Does the Taoiseach not agree that in a country that is crucified by austerity, where our people are hurting badly through massive extra taxation, property tax and the projected water tax, these funds should be taxed? Given the current situation, corporations should be made to pay. The Taoiseach's position in blankly stating that 12.5% is adequate as a headline rate and that corporations here pay about that rate, is completely unsustainable.

Does the Taoiseach not understand that an increasing subject of discussion, debate and controversy around the world, but particularly in Europe and the United States, is the growing inequality between the tiny elite, 1% to 5% of populations, at the top who continue to accumulate massive wealth even in years of austerity, while ordinary people suffer? Society and services are also suffering. Will it ever dawn on the Taoiseach to point out these issues at EU fora, rather than being part of the current establishment regime's thinking which is hugely destructive of society? It is giving rise to massive and growing inequality, and is actually criminal. Does the Taoiseach see no responsibility for the Irish Government there?

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