Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. Like others, I support the position taken by the Government in appealing this decision. Ireland, as we well know, has one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe. That is no mean feat considering the recessionary period we have come through. One has to look a little deeper to understand why. It is clearly based on the open nature of our economy and the outward-looking nature of our economic policies, the companies and the people who represent them. That is not by accident. It is because we have an investor base in this country that is modern, with a global footprint that is selling products and services that are needed right around the world. Our education system is exceptional, we are an English-speaking country, we are bright and intelligent, we have a creative workforce, we are really good at developing research with our universities, and we have the skills and the skilled people to develop new services right across the board, whether in the pharma, biopharma, insurance, ICT, or medical device sectors.

I am concerned about a sense of taking what we have for granted that is creeping into this debate. We need to take ourselves back 30 years to a time when we did not have that kind of landscape. There was no certainty around our capacity to develop the skills to which I refer or regarding the fact that we had an education system that was fit for purpose and was connected with industry through the work in our universities, that we had a research base, and that we had all these skilled people. We did not have those. We had to use other incentives and we had to develop our corporate tax policy in a manner that would attract these companies. I stand over that and I make no apologies to Deputy Jonathan O'Brien for the decisions that were taken back then to try to convince these companies. Luckily, we have been able to develop alongside them and now we have a much greater foundation to attract the next wave of investment.

It is a very different landscape to what it was then. We all know the number of jobs associated with it - 187,000 direct and 200,000 indirect. I see that in my own constituency. I see the industrial base that has been developed in Shannon since the Lemass era, when the airport and the free zone were put in place. Small local companies started out there and foreign multinationals followed. They succeeded in employing a greater number of people. They upskilled the workforce in the region and now we have been able to move to a higher level, with higher-value jobs being created all the while.

At this stage, the battle lines are drawn between Ireland and the Commission. The courts will decide. However, the battle is not about the €13 billion. Let us be clear: the €13 billion is not there. What is at stake is the certainty afforded in respect of our capacity to develop our own tax policy. The retroactive nature of the decision that has been taken so far is hugely damaging to our capacity to attract the next wave of investment. We are certain about the skills of our people, we are certain about our education people and we are certain that we are going to continue to speak the English language. There are plenty of things about which we are certain. However, the one thing we do not have certainty is our capacity to continue to decide our own taxation policy, notwithstanding that it is recognised in EU treaties that the latter is a competency of this State. We need to assert that and we need to challenge the Commission and defend our sovereignty in that regard. I would have hoped that would have come to the fore here and that others, particularly those who seek to represent the left, would have a greater understanding of that.

This notion that Apple will not leave is a bit of a red herring. Of course Apple is not going to leave. The multinationals are not going to leave overnight, but anyone who suggests that should be a plank of our future policy fails to understand how these multinational companies work. Every three to five years new waves of investment come from the United States and, whether it is Apple alone or one of the many of the other multinationals, each site has to fight for a portion of that wave of investment. We could be fighting with Luxembourg next month.

We could be fighting with Belgium the year after. In many cases we have lost some companies as a result of the aggressive nature of the activities and industrial policies of other member states. I just looked at what happened in Clarecastle recently when Roche lost the capacity to retain investment it had looked for and other member states succeeded in getting that.

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