Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

Let me tell the Minister about some reality. In my constituency a number of places in a vocational training opportunities scheme, VTOS, which is a further education scheme, were cut and instead we have extensive use of the Gateway scheme whereby hundreds of peoples have been working for €1 for 20 hours a week for almost two years. They are involved in protests against the scheme, which they describe as soul destroying. The morale of the group is very down. People treat it like a prison sentence at this stage because they simply do work which is meaningless and they do not feel valued for it. This is what faces ordinary people, but for corporations, between Starbucks, Apple, Google and the other, the Action Plan for Jobs and the general approach of the Government means not paying any tax. The Government was forced to drop the double Irish a year ago, but one year later we have the knowledge development box, which is another tax loophole aimed at corporations. The Government's job creation agenda is to give the corporations all of these incentives and free money and then ensure they do not pay any tax.

See this speech in context