Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the recall of the Dáil to debate this matter. I fully support the Government's decision to appeal the European Commission findings, which have unjustly accused the Government of providing unlawful state aid to Apple. The setting of taxation levels is a matter of national sovereignty and it is the duty of the Government and, indeed, the Oireachtas to pass it. The Commission has no authority whatsoever to influence our tax policy, which has been said on many occasions over the past few hours. A number of fundamental questions arise from these findings. Did the Revenue Commissioners do a specific deal with Apple? Did we, by extension, ignore our own domestic laws and have Apple breach taxation laws in the Republic of Ireland? I believe the answer to those questions is a rather emphatic "no". I am not alone in this.

We would all like €19 billion to spend on public services. We could, no doubt, devise a way of dividing it up among the 40 constituencies and deliver on pet projects that we all have. In my case, why have one metro north when we could have five? Of course, we live in the real world. We have a responsibility to defend not only the actions of this House over decades but also the Revenue Commissioners, who operate independently of Government and of the Oireachtas, with the exception, of course, of implementing the laws we enact. The unjust claims of the Commission should be robustly disproved and our corporation tax rate must be defended from the undue influence of the Commission. Failure to do so would erode our sovereign responsibilities and would not be in the best interests of all the components of this State.

It is ironic in the extreme that a party that has solidly called for a "Níl" vote in nine consecutive EU referendum campaigns from 1972 to 2002 is now supporting one of its institutions, to paraphrase John Downing earlier in the week. Our taxation system follows OECD principles, where a company pays tax on its economic activities in a state, but the Commission seems to want us to forgo this principle and not only to collect taxation that is not due to us but also to apply its current view retrospectively as far back as 1991. What further erodes the credibility of this finding is that while the clock is ticking on the appeal, there does not appear to be a timeline for the publication of the report. In any legal scenario I can think of, it would not be acceptable for a headline charge to be levied against a person or company while the nature of it and the detail behind it are withheld. I also question the validity of the requirement for a private company to hand over billions of euro for a finding - not a judgment of a court but, in effect, an opinion - by an entity that, in broad terms, has no competence to make such a determination. At the very least, the full report should be published before any transfer takes place.

What is clear in this case is that Apple has paid its tax on activities in Ireland, according to the Revenue Commissioners, and if it owes tax on its global profits, it does not owe it to this jurisdiction. The State has a responsibility and a duty to its citizens to ensure it collects revenue where it is owed. That applies to all member states in the EU. The failure of others to do so should not have repercussions for our State or, indeed, our international reputation. Our tax code is based on a statutory footing and, as such, the Revenue Commissioners do not have the ability to offer sweetheart deals. Claims to the contrary are disingenuous at best.

In Ireland, our headline and effective tax rates are almost identical, being 12.4% versus 12.5%. That is according to PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Bank. We do not do special deals and our Revenue Commissioners would not have the authority to do so in the first instance. The PricewaterhouseCoopers report was given this headline in the following days: "Turns out Ireland was telling the truth about company taxes. Unlike nearly everyone else..." Our tax code is implemented fully and without deviation by the Revenue Commissioners, as passed by this House and the Seanad. It seems that the Commission is not entirely sure where this tax is due. Ireland should not be used as a scapegoat in this matter. Either the tax is due or it is not.

In order to resolve this situation, we must appeal the decision of the European Commission to the European Court of Justice to ensure a non-political decision is reached, based upon legal facts. A failure to appeal would be a negation of the responsibility to protect our national interest and an admission of guilt where no wrongdoing has occurred. This would be a disservice to the people.

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