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

I thank the Acting Chairman. I challenge what the Taoiseach said earlier about the Apple tax ruling. The ruling clearly states that the tax rulings made by Revenue were ineffective and inconsistent. The court does not contest that the level of tax on chargeable profits was totally out of line with the amount of tax that would be paid anywhere else under normal market conditions. In other words, the court accepted that Apple was involved in aggressive tax avoidance here. It only said that it could not quite prove that the inconsistent, ineffective and incredibly low tax rate Apple enjoyed through tax avoidance strategies represented an advantage deliberately conferred on that company, because that is a difficult thing to prove. The point is that we were being used as a tax haven and that Revenue's rulings were inconsistent and ineffective. Unless we think Revenue is stupid, which I do not believe it is, it is clear that we were colluding with these tax avoidance strategies. It is shameful that we did so because it means we have put the interests of a super-wealthy corporation ahead of the interests of the ordinary people who could badly do with that €13 billion in cash.

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