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

The point of what I read out is that country-by-country reporting arises from an OECD recommendation under its BEPS project. It was accepted internationally. Last year, country-by-country reporting was enshrined in law in accordance with our international agreement with all other OECD members. Part of the international agreement is that while there would be an exchange of information between revenue authorities, such information would remain confidential. If we were to decide to publish unilaterally, we would be in breach of the international agreement and other countries could legitimately refuse to exchange confidential tax information with the Irish tax authorities.

There is another forum for debate then, as I referred to in the answer, which is the European Commission. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is involved with the negotiations with it and there is a proposal from the Commission that an obligation would be put on companies to publish the information. We will see where that lands. To do what the Deputy requests in his amendments would be a reversal of policy. Rather than giving us additional information about the global activities of multinationals, it would reduce the information the Revenue Commissioners get because we would be in breach of the OECD agreement to keep the information exchange confidential. That is the point.

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