Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On this issue, as the Taoiseach outlined earlier, the Next Generation EU financing will be raised by temporarily increasing the ceiling on own resources to 2% of the EU gross national income. This will allow us to borrow the money. In terms of how we repay that, this is a debate that is still ongoing and on which there has been no agreement. Ireland's perspective has not changed. We have said - this is an agreement that has been reached by all member states - a tax on plastics is something that we would agree on. We have said that we would consider looking the proposals regarding the emissions trading system, ETS. However, in terms of the common consolidated corporate tax base, CCCTB, or digital tax, as the Deputy outlined, we would be highly sceptical. Particularly when it comes to the digital tax, we believe that this is an issue that should be addressed through the OECD process. It is a global issue and it should be dealt with on the global stage. Our position on that has not changed. There are obviously different views. This is the first time that these proposals have been dealt with since the introduction of the Next Generation EU fund. Obviously, we want leaders to be able to reach an agreement by July.

This is our position. We support the introduction of plastic-based taxes and possibly a look at ETS, but all of the other issues we see as being potentially problematic.

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