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

For the Minister to describe it as a small number of targeted allowances is incredible. The latest available figures for corporate tax, which are always a few years behind, which is itself a problem, are for 2015. They show €144 billion in gross profits and tax paid of €6.2 billion, which is less than 5%, not 12.5%. Let us look at one example, the research and development tax credit. In 2015 the research and development tax credit was €708 million. Does the Minister know who actually pays for that? He has to look no further than the report about Irish universities tumbling further down the international rankings and professors from those universities saying the reason Irish universities are falling down the rankings is because the staff to student ratio is going through the roof. Money that should be going into Irish universities for teachers, lecturers and students is going to a small number of multinational corporations which are avoiding tax. If we have money for research and development, instead of it going to super-wealthy, profitable and tax-avoiding multinationals, should it not go into our universities?

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