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

Boris Johnson is a wrecker. That is clear from his Internal Market Bill and his talk of breaching international agreements, resurrecting the threat of a hard Brexit and resurrecting fears, which must be resisted every inch of the way, of a hard border and so on. More generally, there is the economic damage that would be done as a result of a no-deal Brexit and the advent of tariffs, customs and so on, on an east-west basis, all of which will do very severe economic damage to particular sectors of our economy. Most important, as Deputy Barry said, they will have a severe impact on working people, in the North, in the South and in Britain. It is par for the course for Boris Johnson to behave in this sort of reckless way. In that context, we support the broad thrust of this Bill, which is about trying to maintain, as much as possible, the status quoin terms of the common travel area arrangements and co-operation on a North-South basis in respect of health services provision, social welfare arrangements, immigration arrangements and so on. The intention is to minimise disruption and ensure people's rights are maintained as much as is possible. In broad terms, therefore, we support the provisions in the Bill.

However, I find some aspects of it interesting and noteworthy. It is a lengthy Bill and there is a lot in it. As I said, the broad ambition to maintain the status quois absolutely correct, but it is interesting that the Bill, because it has to cover so many different areas, highlights certain aspects of the status quo, particularly in terms of the tax system and corporate tax reliefs, which are not so wonderful. The Minister might address this issue in his response. For example, section 51 relates to an anti-corporate tax avoidance measure set out in section 130 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 which seeks to re-characterise interest paid as a distribution of profits in certain circumstances. It is a good measure in that interest being paid by a company to one of its subsidiaries is one of the main mechanisms by which companies, many of which are based here but have operations elsewhere in the EU, avoid paying tax. If a company is paying interest, that is considered a cost and, therefore, eligible for tax relief. As this section rightly identifies, these so-called interest payments are often, in reality, distributions of profits. However, the correct re-characterisation of interest payments as being, in fact, distributions only applies to countries outside the EU. Within the EU, companies can fiddle their taxes by calling their profits interest payments, but companies outside the EU are restricted from doing so. Whether they are inside or outside the EU, companies should not be able to fiddle their taxes by characterising profits as interest repayments and, therefore, costs. This is a very significant mechanism through which bigger companies with subsidiaries in multiple jurisdictions can evade tax. As I recall, it was used by one of the companies owned by Mr. Goodman, which had operations in Luxembourg, to reduce its tax bill. Many companies do the same.

It is interesting that, notwithstanding the wrecking ball being thrown by Boris Johnson and the possibility of a hard border, this Bill makes provision to ensure that Britain will still be treated, in effect, as a member of the EU for the purposes of facilitating companies there to continue availing of this particular form of tax avoidance. Whatever about Brexit, the section on corporation tax is revealing in that in the case of all of these myriad tax loopholes that benefit large corporations by facilitating them to reduce their tax bill, Britain is still going to be included in the loop. In case anybody gets me wrong, I do not think that we should single Britain out in this regard. As I said, I accept that the purpose of the Bill is broadly to maintain the status quopost Brexit. However, it is interesting that the status quoincludes myriad tax loopholes which, it seems, are absolutely essential to maintain. Those loopholes allow corporations that should be paying a much bigger contribution in tax to avoid making that contribution. That is noteworthy.

On the broader thrust of the Bill, we have to do everything possible to ensure that the Boris Johnson wrecking ball does not succeed. Under no circumstances, whatever may happen, must we allow any of his actions or pressure from the European Union to protect the Single Market from Boris Johnson's race to the bottom to result in any talk of re-establishing a hard border.

While I welcome President-elect Joe Biden's comments on not doing trade deals with Britain if it does anything to endanger the peace agreement in the North, to break international agreements or to cause the reinstallation of the border, I echo some of the comments made by Deputy Barry. We should not put too much trust in Joe Biden. We are all relieved to get rid of Donald Trump and the toxic politics and agenda of hate and division that he represents - he was, of course, an ally of Boris Johnson - but we should not be under any illusion that Joe Biden and the Democrats will necessarily be stalwarts when it comes to preventing the sort of neoliberal agenda that Boris Johnson represents. Joe Biden and the mainstream of the Democratic Party have facilitated and encouraged neoliberalism and the race to the bottom at the expense of working people. It was, to a significant extent, their failure to protect working people in the United States and their facilitation of a corporate agenda that created the conditions for the rise of the rotten and toxic politics of Trump in the first place. I would be cautious about placing much hope in or dependence on Joe Biden. I hear Sinn Féin also saying that such illusions in Joe Biden would be somewhat misguided.

Johnson is a wrecker and has been exposed as such. He has similarly been exposed for his incompetence and failure on Covid-19. One can see that playing out with the mess - the Northern Executive has to share some culpability in this - arising from the failure to recognise the need to be co-ordinated with the South in an all-island strategy and to maintain the current restrictions rather than talking of lifting them on Friday. For these reasons, the time has never been better to make the case for a united Ireland. When we look at what Johnson represents, the mess he has made in Britain at every level and, indeed, how the politics of the DUP, Johnson and others are threatening public health on this island and the ability of people to deal with the existential health threat presented by Covid-19, now is the time to make the case for a united Ireland. However, it has to be a different type of united Ireland, one which genuinely offers a better future and real equality for working people and an end to the politics of sectarianism and division.

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