Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

First, will the Minister agree that the issue for Ireland is the fact that we have very low corporate taxes? For instance, institutions such as the banks, particularly the banks we bailed out, pay little or no tax. They pay a modest levy of €150 million on profits which now run into the billions of euro, an issue the Minister has refused to address. Second, middle and higher income workers are paying quite a lot of income tax. Low paid workers are paying relatively little tax, but they are paying PRSI. What we have is a complete distortion caused, in particular, by the very big international companies in Ireland and the fact that a lot of intellectual property has been brought to Ireland. That is seen as a scandal in the rest of the world and one can only describe it as such. Many poor countries struggle to survive because the big corporations are paying very little tax anywhere.

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