Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, the Taoiseach told us that his primary aim in budget 2018 is to balance the books. He expressed this as a priority - indeed almost as a virtue - in response to my question about the need to provide real investment in order to slash the crippling cost of child care in the State. Meanwhile, at yesterday's meeting of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, representatives from AIB told my colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, that it will not pay any corporation tax for the next 20 years. A bank that is now profitable will pay no corporation tax - zip, zero, zilch. As the Taoiseach knows, AIB made a pre-tax profit of €814 million in the first six months of this year. The tax that is due on these profits is money that is badly needed to deal with the crises in our crumbling public services, not least those relating to health and mental health. However, we have a golden arrangement with the banks as a result of a legislative change introduced in 2014 under a previous Fine Gael-led Government with the assistance of the Labour Party and yet the Taoiseach talks about a tight fiscal space.

Is it any wonder that we have a tight fiscal space? After all the austerity, the cuts and the hardship that the Taoiseach's party visited on ordinary people, the banks are back in profit and are told that they are scot-free regarding their corporation tax obligations. This is happening at a time when families still struggle to keep the wolf from the door to pay their bills.

I find this a very strange way to go about balancing the books. I can only imagine what the 8,000 people deprived of a place to live will make of this or what the 494 patients who were on trolleys yesterday might make of this. This cosy tax-free deal for the banks really amounts to another bailout for them. Much like the Apple tax debacle, it emerges again that the Taoiseach's message to the corporate world is that it can keep the people's money and that he is prepared to tolerate citizens living in doorways and being sick and going without treatment. The Taoiseach's talk of a republic of opportunity is once again exposed as a sham. It is in reality a republic of opportunism where his Government dances to the tune of opportunistic bankers. I ask the Taoiseach to do the sums for us. I want him to tell us how much tax this State is forgoing from AIB under this sweetheart deal. I also want him to tell us how much this State will forgo over the next 20 years. Could he also inform us of the similar figures in the case of Bank of Ireland and other banks for this year and over the 20-year period?

See this speech in context