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

There is no doubt that securing a commitment to have no hard border between the North and South was a hugely important issue and failure to do so would have had a severe impact on people in the North and the South. It was right therefore that there was much concentration on that in public debate this week but it is worth saying that there was no significant divergence of opinion in this House about the stance that we needed to take. Having secured the issue of the Border, we hope, the question is if the fruits of economic growth and wealth in Irish society will be shared out fairly.

Will the economic benefit that derives from protecting our economy from one threat mean anything for ordinary people?

It is a source of frustration for me that issues which should get every bit as much attention such as rampant tax avoidance and tax evasion by the wealthiest corporations in this country are the subject of very little debate. For a brief period the Paradise Papers, and the Panama Papers before them, shone a light on it, as did the scandal around the €13 billion of tax highlighted by the EU which Apple should have paid but which this Government did not collect. However, most of the time this double standard of the rich and the big corporations not paying taxes is not discussed and ordinary people are encouraged to fight over the crumbs.

We are faced with an absolutely catastrophic housing and homelessness crisis. Our health service is a shambles and causing immense suffering for those who rely on it. We have the most overcrowded classrooms in Europe. We have a massive deficit in our water, public transport and broadband infrastructures. The list goes on. Most of the time, however, public debate is about having only a few crumbs to play with and the fiscal space so we give a little bit to housing, a little bit to health and a little bit to education. Meanwhile, as the Government and much of the media discussion encourages us to focus on fighting over the crumbs, a small group of people are running away with the cake. That is what the Panama Papers, or the parasite papers as I like to call them, reveal.

Generally speaking, we are hypnotised by false debates and disputes over how we share out the wealth when the real wealth is being stolen from under our noses, facilitated by the tax code and the two main political parties in the country. I have to point out that it is deeply ironic to have Deputy Joan Burton stand up and talk about a minimum effective tax rate. She forgets that up until last year she was in government when we on this side of the House were screaming since 2011 for a minimum effective corporate tax rate and that the big corporations were getting away with murder through the double Irish and tax loopholes. We were asking for a minimum effective tax rate but Deputy Brendan Howlin joined with Deputy Michael Noonan in saying it was rubbish and constantly repeating the phrase that there was no pot of gold and that we were talking nonsense. Of course, the Apple scandals, the Paradise Papers and the Panama Papers have revealed that the left was right about what was going on and the scale of it is absolutely astonishing. On a global level, the result of that is the extraordinary fact that the eight richest people in the world now own as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion of the population.It is so mind-boggling, obscene and staggering, it is not possible to get one's head around it.

To bring it home, last year the number of millionaires in Ireland increased by 15,000. We now have 125,000 millionaires in Ireland. This figure is up from the figure in 2006 when a Bank of Ireland study showed that there were 33,000 millionaires. At the height of the Celtic tiger period, we had 33,000 millionaires but today we have 125,000 millionaires. Who are those people? I will tell the House who they are. They are the parasites at the top of the big corporations and the banks and the people who are making a fortune out of the housing and homelessness crisis. They are absolutely creaming it and paying no tax. They are the banks, vulture funds and corporations and building contractors who pay no tax.

This was facilitated all along the way by tax loopholes engineered successively by Fianna Fáil and, more recently, Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Let us consider the irony of Deputy Joan Burton complaining about this. The Labour Party was in government in 2014 when the former Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, changed the law to ensure Apple would not be punished as a result of the changes to the double Irish tax scam which had already cost us €13 billion. The Fine Gael-Labour Party Government applied the 100% tax allowance to intangible assets. Mr. Seamus Coffey who nobody can accuse of being a left-wing firebrand or scaremonger said categorically that in 2015 it had cost the State €800 million. Imagine where we would be now in resolving the housing crisis if we had had an extra €800 million in 2015 and we would have had the same amount in 2016 and 2017. According to Mr. Coffey, had the Government made the change that occurred in the last budget, namely, to reduce the intangible assets allowance to 80%, we would have an extra €1 billion next year. Imagine what that could do to resolve the housing and homelessness crisis, in addition to the health crisis. It would give us extra funds for our creaking infrastructure and allow us to invest in education. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, made a decision not to do what I have described, to the benefit of the big corporations which apparently need certainty. Ordinary people also need certainty that they will have a roof over their heads and not be homeless on the streets over Christmas, but it appears that this is less important to the Government than giving Apple the certainty that it will pay no tax on the €119 billion made in sales last year. It is absolutely shocking. All we can do is ring the alarm bells and try to get the truth out to the people. Frankly, it will take a revolution to shift the political establishment towards dealing with the gross inequalities associated with tax and wealth distribution in this country.

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