Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the compliment. Yes, I was one of the people who initiated the contacts with the OECD. We only have a limited amount of time before the rest of the world refuses to accept that in certain parts of the world there can be a situation where fabulously wealthy corporations make no tax contributions. We facilitate it, which is why I have been an advocate - the OECD is now also an advocate - of the making of minimum effective tax contributions. I have given the Minister a simple example. The banks in Ireland took the shirts off the backs of Irish workers when they were bailed out. I again acknowledge that when the Labour Party was in government, I was very much the author of the bank levy and the proposal made to the Minister's predecessor. It yields €150 million, but I am citing the small example of the banks. Paul Krugman, the Nobel economics prize winner, used the term "leprechaun economics" to describe the phenomenon the Minister has just described. When will the Minister get banks and other very large corporations to pay a fair share of tax?

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