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

Has the Cabinet Committee on European Affairs discussed the issue of the European Commission ruling on Apple's tax affairs in this country? Does the Taoiseach intend having further discussions about the Government's highly reprehensible decision to refuse the €13 billion that the European Commission believes is owed to the Exchequer in Apple taxes after the Commissioner Vestager's testimony to the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach? It was an extraordinary irony that at yesterday's committee meeting all those who were most critical of the European Union and its austerity policy, such as us, commended the Commissioner on at least the Commission doing this thing right and all the members from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who are the most enthusiastic for the European Union, essentially impugning her motives for coming up with these findings.

She was a very strong performer. What it boiled down to was her saying there was no way the European Commission could conclude that a company that had no employees, no activities and no offices could possibly have been allocated the profits of Apple rather than the company that was tax resident in this country and carried out real economic activity. That is an unanswerable point. Tax evasion was going on. This was a bogus company and the Government and Revenue facilitated this tax evasion by Apple.

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