Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the conservative establishment for retaining the ability to shock me. Today's motion is a new level in hypocrisy. The EU Commission's proposal is a very modest attempt to bring more transparency to the tax affairs of very large companies. This State brought in country by country reporting in last year's Finance Bill but failed to make this reporting publicly available. The Commission's action would make that reporting public in the case of very large companies. Due to the austerity rules for which Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil argued, we are struggling to find special purpose vehicles to build homes for our friends and families, relying on strokes of luck from EUROSTAT to allow us keep our hospitals working to full capacity while the Taoiseach is writing begging letters to the EU to be allowed build the infrastructure every business in the country is crying out for. However, when it came to those rules, all parties in the State, bar a few, were willing to roll over. Suddenly, however, and because 47 huge companies will be asked to be a tiny bit more transparent about their taxes, we have a problem. This is hypocrisy on a huge scale and it will fool nobody.

There is no party that has even the merest bit of credibility when it comes to protecting Irish sovereignty here compared to Sinn Féin. We engage critically with the EU and are proud to have stood for Irish sovereignty time after time. When our fishermen's and farmers' livelihoods, our natural resources or our neutrality are in question, there are no concerns about sovereignty from the parties that have swallowed the EU line time after time. This motion is not about subsidiarity, it is about protecting huge companies from having to put some of their tax affairs in the open. Only months ago, I proposed in the Finance Bill that Ireland introduce country-by-country reporting on a public basis. I was told we should wait because the EU and OECD were moving in that direction. Now that these bodies have done exactly what I was told to wait for, we are raising objections.

The legal arguments put forward by the committee are weak. This is an accounting action, not primarily a tax proposal. No tax rate changes as suggested by Fianna Fáil are proposed. The use of the quote from the Commission referring to "tax policies and administration" in the report is a distortion. What it actually said was:

In an increasingly global integrated and digitalised economy, corporations and production value chains reflect less national and indeed regional boundaries. By contrast, tax policies and administration remain primarily a national responsibility.

That is what is in it. It is not this idea of a grab for tax control. The attempt at spin here can be seen through without much effort. The proposal is clearly referring to financial reporting in the context of cross-border abuses not tax affairs. Likewise the attempt to present the proposal to set up a blacklist as a power grab is politically motivated not legally motivated. We have to ask whether Ireland and so many other states are nervous about who might end up on such a list. I disagree strongly that the proposal in Article 28 exceeds the power given to the EU and see nothing in the report that makes me think otherwise. Scare-mongering around American reaction to this initiative can also be dismissed. It would be our preference that moves like this be made on a global rather than an EU scale, but until that time there is no excuse to not go with the progress that can be made.

When it comes to cracking down on tax avoidance, the State is treading a fine line. Time after time, it has called for international co-operation and a cynic might say that was a delaying tactic. When the international co-operation happens and an EU proposal for the implementation of internationally agreed standards on financial reporting comes before us, the establishment political parties start to wave a yellow flag, shouting about subsidiarity and sovereignty. It is not credible. It is time for real debate in this country about our relationship to the international tax system. How many times was I told we could not act to end companies declaring themselves stateless or that we could not close the double Irish and had to wait for our international partners to move? Yet, it happened and we were able to do it. Development charities have correctly pointed out the real impact of facilitating tax avoidance. They have made practical suggestions as to what the State can do domestically to be a fairer player in international tax matters. I hope the Government will move on this issue.

Sinn Féin rejects this motion. It is a political attempt to hide behind an honourable concept. Fundamentally, this is not about Ireland's interest or the interests of Irish workers; it is about protecting the interests of 47 massive companies, which will survive in any event.

See this speech in context