Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil believes Ireland's long-standing right as an independent nation to determine its corporation tax policy in all its respects must be vigorously defended. Ireland's corporation tax policy has been a fundamental pillar of our hugely successful inward investment strategy in recent decades. Taxation is a national competence and we must ensure that it remains so.

The central premise of the European Commission's case is that Apple got a special deal involving preferential or selective treatment that was not available to any other company operating in Ireland. The case will ultimately be won or lost in the European courts on this key question of selectivity. Ireland's corporation tax laws in the 1990s or 2000s are not the issue here. The laws applied to every company. The net issue is what the Commission calls "Revenue rulings", but which were actually advance opinions given by Revenue in 1991 and 2007 in respect of the allocation of profits between the Irish branch and head office of two Apple companies that were not tax resident in Ireland, namely, Apple Operations Europe and, most importantly from a financial perspective, Apple Sales International.

Fianna Fáil has not seen the Commission's report, but we have carefully read all of the available documentation and listened intently to the arguments of Commissioner Vestager. We do not support the Commission's conclusion that these Revenue rulings amount to illegal State aid to Apple and Fianna Fáil will support the motion tabled by the Government. Failure to appeal the Commission's finding would be to accept that Ireland had engaged in illegal State aid for the past 25 years.

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