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

The German playwright, Bertolt Brecht, stated that the crime of robbing a bank is absolutely nothing compared with the crime of owning one. Never was a truer word said when we consider what the banks have done and allowed to be done to the people of this country in recent years. The people of this country have paid a bitter price in the crash of the economy for the reckless gambling and greed for profit and bonuses of the bankers. They paid a further bitter price in the enormous cost of the bailout, which was paid for with cruel suffering and austerity over years. Finally, when those banks are nursed back to profitability as a result of the suffering ordinary people have endured due to the banks' activities, the Minster reprivatised them to ensure that the full fruits of the profits which they will make in future years, and not just the 12.5% tax, are given away to shareholders. They are not given to those who paid the price but to the private shareholders who can buy bank shares. That is the first crime and, even now, one that the Government should pull back from in its further plans to reprivatise the banks. As if all those crimes which were carried out for the banks and their shareholders are not bad enough, we then have the extraordinary situation of banks, which are once again fantastically profitable, for years to come paying no tax. It is absolutely true, as Deputy Wallace said, that there would be murder if the people of the country knew it.

When I try to explain to people these sorts of loopholes which allow banks, vulture funds and corporations to avoid tax, most of them do not believe me. When I tell them that AIB is making profits again, repossessing homes and charging extortionate interest rates but is paying no tax at all and will not for years, they do not believe me. They think it could not be true, yet it is true. It is because it is so unbelievable that there is no revolution in the country. I am being absolutely straight with the Minister. If people really knew the extent of this carry-on, there would be a revolution. If they knew that, side by side with the homelessness crisis, the chronic situation in our hospitals, the overcrowded schools and the massive deficit in our infrastructure, billions upon billions are going out in tax expenditures for losses made by these banks every year, they would revolt. However, the Government is lucky. It is saved by the fact that very few people are really listening to the detail of the debate, and even if they did, they would hardly believe it or understand what they were hearing. It is absolutely shocking.

I am not so sure about losses being brought forward. It is another example of one law for the rich and one law for the poor. What about all the people who suffered losses during the austerity period through no fault of their own? What about those who ran up personal debts and lost out in all sorts of ways? Can they carry their losses forward against their income tax next year? Will they get any allowances in their income tax next year or the year after for the losses they made? Not at all. However, the banks will pay no tax at all for years. Their shareholders will make dividends and the value of their shareholdings in those banks will appreciate. It is absolutely outrageous. Perhaps there is a case for losses being brought forward for certain genuine businesses to keep them in business. However, that these banks, in particular, can do it is shocking.

It is an open goal for tax avoidance in the future and for our friends who have subsidiaries. Losses can be manufactured. We know how they manufactured and manipulated the prices of intellectual property assets, which we were discussing earlier. It is quite possible to manufacture losses when there is a network of subsidiaries. That is another problem I have with the whole principle of losses being brought forward. The idea that the banks, after all they have done to us and all we have done for them, can pay no tax beggars belief. AIB is one of the most profitable banks in Europe. The Government is lucky that it beggars belief though. It would be paying a much bigger political price if it was not so incredible.

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