Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Budget 2016 and the entire Action Plan for Jobs process have been designed to achieve balanced and sustainable growth across sectors, spanning both Irish-owned and foreign-owned enterprises. The recovery in jobs and exports to date is in large part due to the considerable improvements in the business environment for enterprise that have taken place in recent years. The measures announced by the Minister for Finance in budget 2016 last month have further strengthened the attractiveness of Ireland as a place for innovation, entrepreneurship and investment, delivering sustainable job creation and growth. A competitive and innovative enterprise base is at the core of Ireland's future economic development and Government policies for enterprise and innovation set the framework for continued investment and growth.

Ireland is the first country in the world to introduce an OECD-compliant knowledge development box, KDB, offering certainty to global and Irish-owned enterprises. The OECD approach sets out the principles and guidelines under which income arising from intellectual property assets can qualify for a lower rate of tax under a knowledge development box initiative. Ireland's KDB rate is 6.25% - half of the corporation tax rate - and is internationally competitive. It is important to note that there have been no changes to the headline corporation tax rate of 12.5%.

The knowledge box, as outlined by the Minister for Finance, will support and encourage both foreign and Irish-owned enterprise to undertake research and development here, to protect the intellectual property that arises and to benefit from the measure.

The Finance Bill also allows for the introduction of a provision pertaining to companies with income arising from intellectual property of less than €7,500,000, which will be introduced during 2016, when the necessary legislation to give it effect is enacted, and will be of direct benefit to companies of a relatively lower scale, with global income of less than €50 million.

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