Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We want it to be a legal requirement that Revenue will provide the information and not that it may do so. We do not want it to be just at the discretion of Revenue. I do not see why Revenue needs discretion or flexibility in respect of this matter and I do not understand why there is a need for confidentiality. Our inability to ascertain where these multinationals are making their profits, and their ability to hide the fact, is at the heart of their ability to avoid vast amounts of tax, robbing the taxpayers of Ireland and their counterparts across Europe and the world of enormous amounts of money. Some estimates put the untaxed profits held by multinational corporations at approximately €2 trillion per year. Much of their ability to engage in this tax avoidance is based on their ability to mask where the profits are being made. We want it to be an absolute legal requirement that companies provide this information and that it be made available to the public. I do not buy the confidentiality argument. I do not see the justification for it. Transparency and the imperative for tax justice make it a necessity that we should get the information, that companies should be forced to provide it and that it should be made available for the public to scrutinise.

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