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

The affairs of individuals and corporations are confidential and the Revenue Commissioners does not give information about the tax affairs of individuals or individual companies to the Minister or anybody else. It is confidential and the information would not be available. The Deputy knows from our debates from 2013 onwards that stateless companies or companies not resident anywhere for tax purposes was a major international issue. We dealt with it in legislation that I proposed and which were put through in finance Bills before the House.

Are there other companies with the same kind of model as Apple? If there were, I do not believe there would be a state aid case. The principle of the state aid case is that a company got unique preferential treatment. If it were a general policy, the state aid case would fall. My argument is that what Apple did was available to the entire sector. It is one of the reasons the state aid case will not stand.

On the costs to date, €667,000 has been spent on consultancy, legal fees and advice since this started in 2014. It is not possible for anybody to give an estimate of the costs of the appeal but they will be in line with the costs of solicitors and senior and junior counsels. I have no doubt it will be a sizable amount. The Deputy had two other questions.

See this speech in context