Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I echo the sentiments of my party colleagues in supporting this motion and everything that defends Ireland's right to decide its own tax rates. Ireland's competitive and stable corporate tax rate is what attracts multinational companies to make their home here. Nobody can deny the investment they make in jobs on this small island and, particularly, how they did so during the hard years of the recession. With approximately 700 US multinationals located in Ireland, our young and talented workforce has the opportunity to work across a wide variety of sectors; it is an opportunity about which the generation before it could only have dreamed.

As I am from Cork, I have first-hand knowledge of the direct and indirect employment provided by Apple. A report commissioned by the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland in 2015 indicates that Ireland is the number one destination in the world for US foreign direct investment, with US firms investing more than €277 billion here since 1990.

If we fail to appeal the ruling, we threaten this relationship and we will be saying that we gave special treatment to Apple. As my colleagues have been saying here all day, Ireland has done nothing wrong and is entitled to set a competitive tax regime to attract foreign direct investment.

While opening its offices in Dublin in 2014, the US multinational Airbnb said that Ireland had hospitality in its DNA. This was one of the qualities that attracted the company to open here. There are many other qualities which make us appealing and our tax rate is one of them. In the words of the former President Bill Clinton, however, one would have to be nuts not to take advantage of the unique investment opportunity presented by one of the most business-friendly countries in the world with the youngest, best-educated workforce. He was referring to Ireland. Fianna Fáil considers strongly that Ireland should continue to make it a priority to make our country as attractive as possible to foreign direct investment while ensuring the highest standards in ethical and international obligations. Ireland has led the way in addressing concerns on tax avoidance by big companies and will continue to engage fully with the OECD process and EU initiatives such as the action plan for fair and effective taxation. However, we will reject any EU measures to standardise corporate tax rates and take away our competitive capacity.

The European Commission's ruling is simply an effort to expand EU power over areas of taxation. If it is allowed to get away with it on this occasion, future attempts to maintain control over our tax rates will be jeopardised. Ireland has the right to protect its sovereignty on tax policy as do other EU member states and that is what we need to do. There can be no hesitation. By appealing this judgment, Ireland will send a strong and clear message that it is our sovereign right to decide our tax rate and that we will not compromise on that. If we do not appeal the decision, it will look like we accept that we have done something wrong. Certainly, we have done nothing wrong. The Government handled this situation badly and needs to learn lessons for the future. Nevertheless, I will support the motion.

See this speech in context