Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We dealt with much of this matter last night. I appreciate the views of the Deputy on it but as I explained last night, I profoundly disagree with the approach he has taken. I reiterate that corporation tax policy and decisions we make on how to tax activity within our country is a legitimate part of an economic and political model for a country of our scale and size, located where we are and which has proven successful over many decades in attracting investment to our country. As Deputy Boyd Barrett and I debated last night, missing in the analysis he offers is the role of that policy in generating very valuable jobs. There are over 200,000 such jobs in our country.

1 o’clock

A decision to move to the kind of tax rate and model the Deputy has described could pose a risk to those jobs. In view of that and the need for certainty in our tax model and for it to be clearly understood and impartially implemented by the Revenue Commissioners, I am not accepting the Deputy's amendment. As I said last night, I accept that we and many other jurisdictions must evolve and improve our tax code to ensure it meets the growing international consensus regarding how tax should be collected globally and the Government and I are playing our part in that. However, Ireland cannot be a global tax collector for any company and we cannot do all this work on our own but, rather, it has to happen as part of a broader global journey.

See this speech in context