Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased to participate in this evening's debate, which is timely following yesterday's release of the OECD report and next week's budget announcement. This debate is about tax justice. It is about inequality and where that inequality is, and whether that can change so that multinationals pay their fair share of tax rather than trying to hide their tax affairs under bushels throughout the world.

I would like to begin by making a point that has to be acknowledged as part of this debate. There must be an acceptance that the so-called aggressive taxation policy of the multinational corporations is possible because it is facilitated by states, governments and tax regimes. There is no disputing that Ireland has played and is playing a role in such facilitation. The Government's official policy of tax competition to draw in foreign direct investment means there is an official policy of facilitating the aggressive taxation policies of multinationals. There can be no equivocation on that.

Nobody should be under any illusions regarding what is actually meant by the aggressive taxation policies of multinational corporations. It means evading tax. The best example of the role Ireland has played as a facilitator of this tax avoidance and evasion is the famous double Irish arrangement, which is being phased out following an international hue and cry from worldwide charities and non-governmental organisations and from public opinion. A famous Irish band is unable to play concerts without seeing protest cards being raised highlighting its tax affairs and where they are going. Significant public pressure has come on world opinion in this regard.

The aggressive use of the double Irish arrangement by large multinationals has enabled them to pay little or no tax on sizeable profits. I will give some examples because such a statement should not be left hanging in thin air. Apple has three companies registered in Ireland. One of these companies, Apple Operations International, managed to channel $30 billion without making a single tax return. In 2011, Google made $12.4 billion in profit and paid just $22 million in tax. Google Ireland is owned by Google Ireland Holdings, which is in turn owned by Motorola Mobility International, which operates from a post office box in Bermuda. This nameplate company bills Google Ireland for certain costs in areas like administration, staff, sales and marketing and royalties. After all of this magic has been performed, the tax bill has more or less disappeared. It has gone. One could not make up the manner in which they are able to do this. I will mention another leading American multinational that is based in Ireland. Intel Ireland is a branch of the Intel International corporation, which is based in the Cayman Islands.

I have no doubt that these companies will use and abuse the proposed knowledge development box to continue to reduce the taxes on their profits. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, has made it clear that the proposed knowledge development box will be a key part of Ireland's continuing competitive advantage in attracting foreign direct investment from foreign multinationals. It has already been hinted by sources in the Department of Finance that the corporation profit tax rate for the knowledge development box will be set at 5%. This is the same rate set by those other European tax havens, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It seems that the Government is intent on maintaining good company in this area.

Today, I read the submission of the US Chamber of Commerce in Ireland to the consultation process that the Department of Finance has conducted with business interests, including those well-known tax evasion experts, KPMG. The US chamber is certainly not hiding its light behind a bushel in protecting the interests of US multinationals in Ireland. It wants the knowledge development box to have the broadest possible definition of "intellectual property". When one reads its submission, it seems that everything and anything - any sort of activity - should qualify under the rules of the knowledge development box. For example, the US chamber is saying that intellectual property should not be limited to intellectual property that is just patented. The chamber believes that any intellectual property which can be legally protected should also qualify.

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, intellectual property does not actually have to be legally protected; it is just that it simply "can be". It wants a form of research and development that takes place outside Ireland but has so-called "strategic oversight" in Ireland. In its view, a company should not be required to legally own the intellectual property; it should simply have the right to use it. It is just incredible that it is looking for such a Pandora's box for the multinationals. We can see from this the myriad ways in which multinational corporations will try to exploit the knowledge development box.

This avoidance and evasion of taxation is a significant contributory factor in global equality and the persistence of poverty on a global scale. It affects poorer countries in particular by denying them the tax income that could be used to provide basic health services, or to give every child the right to a basic education. It is important to state on the record of the Dáil that 13% of children in developing countries have never attended school. The majority of the children in question are young girls. This approach to tax denies developing countries the ability to deal with the 500 million children - one in every three - who do not have access to sanitation and the 400 million children who do not have access to safe water. These two problems - the lack of sanitation and safe water - cause 4,000 children to die every day.

This is what such criminal activity we are discussing leads to in reality. It might be legal, but to my mind it is criminal and this Government is up to its neck in it. People are dying in developing countries. It is clear from the figures that the wealthiest 10% of the population in Ireland own 42.3% of the wealth. In the meantime, the housing crisis is the biggest humanitarian crisis to happen in this countries for decades. We have a major crisis in our health service. Approximately 1,500 children in 700 families are living in emergency accommodation. We have substantial poverty and deprivation rates in this country. Why is that happening? Is the transfer of wealth going in one direction while the bottom 50% of people are losing the means to live? That is what this debate is all about.

I wish to make a final important point. I want to hear the Government's position on this loud and clear. I suggest that country-by-country reporting will not make a difference unless the information is put into the public domain. The belated actions of the OECD, the European Parliament and the EU Commission are happening solely because of public outrage. We need public reporting to keep up the pressure on Governments, the EU and the OECD and to make multinationals aware that their activities in this area will no longer take place behind closed doors and can affect their brands and their profits. It is not good enough to keep this information exclusively in Revenue, in Departments or in national authorities.

Such public pressure is the only thing that will be effective in reining in this criminal activity. The Irish Government should be leading the campaign for transparency, not restricting it.

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