Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government decision was to appeal but there was a second leg to the decision, entrusting the development of the grounds for appeal to the Attorney General and her advisers. She will employ counsel and a full legal team led by senior counsel. They will be responsible for the appeal. She has approximately two months to do this under the guidelines and I am sure she will inform the Government of the detailed grounds of the appeal when she has that developed.

On the question of allies, there have been other cases on state aid grounds in this round of scrutiny by the competition Commissioner. By decision of government, Ireland has joined with the appeals from Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium on the cases with which the Deputy will be familiar. We expect and request that they do the same in respect of this case. We have indications already of support but this must be in the judicial forum. We are not talking about political support here.

An escrow account is, in effect, an account that is beyond the reach of the contending parties until triggered by a specific decision. It is either Apple's money or that of the Revenue Commissioners and the Exchequer. Both are prevented from having access to the money unless triggered by an event. That would either be success or failure in the appeal. That is how the escrow would work. The NTMA will take charge of it but it will clearly not be held in cash, as that would not be possible with whatever amount of money is coming in. The obligation of the NTMA in looking after it would be to ensure that in these times of very low interest, at least the nominal value would be held, and it should be grown if possible. In all cases one must balance the return in terms of interest against risk. The lowest risk currently is in German bunds and it could all be put in there but the interest rate is negative; the nominal amount would go down. The NTMA has already set up a group to advise on this and it will proceed on the basis of how to get some return to increase or maintain nominal value while not taking risks that might reduce value. I will keep the Deputies briefed on it as the NTMA develops the guidelines.

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