David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The advantage of coming into a debate midway through is that one would have had a flavour of the opinions from Members of the Government, Fianna Fáil and all the parties and Independents who have spoken so far.

It is quite spectacular to hear an awful lot of the red herrings that have been peddled by Government Ministers and Fianna Fáil here today.

I want to make something very clear to the Ministers who sit across from me and Fianna Fáil which sits opposite me. My party and I are in favour of foreign direct investment. I am in favour of multinational companies coming to Ireland, creating jobs and employing as many people as possible. I am in favour of attracting more foreign direct investment and making sure we do our best to be competitive. This is why I support Ireland's 12.5% corporation tax rate. None of that is in question and none of that can be challenged by the Ministers or Fianna Fáil.

I am against having a two-tier tax structure that forces small and medium-sized businesses to operate within the rules as they should; asks ordinary PAYE workers to operate within the rules, as they do; and then treats one multinational company differently from all the other multinational companies, small and medium-sized businesses and working people across this State. For the record, 808 multinational companies operate in this State. Between them, they employ 180,000 people. All of them, quite rightly, are involved in real economic activity. They create jobs, pay their taxes and provide a service to the State and the communities in which they are based. We all celebrate that.

However, a mechanism was created to allow Apple to avoid paying taxes elsewhere and to allow over €100 billion of profits to become stateless and not taxed anywhere through what the European Commission believes to be a special arrangement and deal struck between the Irish State and that company. The Minister will also be aware of US Senate hearings on this issue. When Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, appeared before the Senate hearing, he made it clear that there was a special arrangement between his company and Ireland and that there was a tax arrangement between his company and Ireland. The head of tax affairs at Apple went further when he was pressed and said that the arrangement meant that Apple paid no more than 2% tax in Ireland. Those were his words at that Senate hearing, not mine or those of Sinn Féin or anyone else in this Chamber. When representatives from Apple were under oath at that Senate hearing, they had no choice but to come clean and accept that there was a special arrangement and that Apple was not paying the proper taxes. The European Commission has found that illegal state aid was given.

The Government also attempted to say that this is not about state aid because it concerns tax. Other people have made the point that they are intertwined and the Minister should know this. Nobody is asking Ireland to become a global tax collector. That is another red herring the Government is peddling here today. I do not believe that Ireland should be a global tax collector but I do not believe this State should facilitate global tax avoidance. That is the question here. That is why the State is in the dock and why the spotlight has been put on this State.

The Minister mentioned a risk to jobs. The only people talking about a risk to jobs are the Fine Gael Ministers sitting across from me and the Fianna Fáil Deputies sitting over here. IDA Ireland is not saying there is any risk to jobs. The multinational companies that are here are not saying there is any risk to jobs. We in Sinn Féin are not saying there is any risk to jobs. I have not heard one CEO of any of the other multinational companies based here say there is a risk to jobs. In fact, the CEO of the company that is in the dock has said that all Apple jobs in Ireland are safe, so the Minister should stop using red herrings.

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