Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that the multinationals are engaging in aggressive tax avoidance to the point that they pay tax at pitifully low levels. In some individual cases, the tax rate is estimated to be 0%. The US congressional committee and bureau of statistics are saying the American multinationals, the big IT multinationals, operating in this country are paying at a rate of 2%. Do we consider that acceptable? Do we consider it acceptable that some of the wealthiest companies in the world, some of whose directors are multibillionaires whose personal wealth is greater than that of entire countries, pay virtually no tax when ordinary workers pay 30% or 40% of their income in tax? I do not believe it is acceptable. Our society and economy will pay a terrible price domestically and internationally if we do not address this. Arguably, the problem is now at the root of global economic and financial instability because there is such a concentration of money in the hands of these firms that they can literally destabilise entire economies.

Let us consider the responses I have received from the Government on the tax loopholes associated with trade charges and intellectual property, the figure for which has jumped from €6 billion to €21 billion in Ireland in five years. This jump is a clear example how the companies are operating here and of the aggressiveness of their approach. What we are not getting from the Government are clear, detailed assurances that the knowledge box will not simply facilitate the same aggressive tax avoidance. One has every reason to believe on examining it that it is designed precisely to facilitate tax avoidance by replacing the double Irish arrangement that is being phased out. It is still going on under our noses. The substantial and detailed questions are not being addressed by the Government. This leads me to believe the Government does not want to address them and that it is just so frightened of the multinationals that it will not say boo to them, although they are essentially engaged in robbing the taxpayers of this country and the world of tax revenue we need to fund our health service, infrastructure, housing and so on. I do not agree with the knowledge box and, at the very least, we need more detailed analysis. If anything, the technical paper to which the Minister referred generates more suspicion and adds to concern rather than allaying it.

See this speech in context