Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Connolly. I agree with the previous speaker to the extent that I hope management at Shannon Airport will engage with the transport committee. However, I have to say I find it slightly laughable that a representative of a political party that cared so much about Aer Lingus's presence in Shannon Airport that it started the privatisation of the company now wants to make Aer Lingus's leaving of Shannon an issue on which it is somehow answerable to the Dáil. That is kind of slapstick at best. However, I do not want to digress too much from the subject we are discussing.

Many speakers criticised the amount we are getting from the European Union. I worry somewhat that we in the Dáil, like other national parliaments, tend to criticise the Union quite a bit without perhaps acknowledging our own faults and our contribution to decisions made at EU level. My understanding is that the criterion for the distribution of funding from the EU was quite transparent and objective. It was based on GDP. Of course, the problem we have is that our GDP is as reliable as the commitment of the previous speaker's party to Aer Lingus's presence at Shannon Airport. We have been criticised roundly and, which is worrying, increasingly, for our corporate tax policy in international media. That includes The New York Times, which ordinarily would be reflective of the thinking within a particular political party in the US, namely, the Democratic Party. That party is now in power and we were all delighted when Mr. Biden took office. Ireland Inc certainly was delighted. One would almost think he was creating employment in a constituency in Ireland, we were so delighted. In fact, he is aggressively going after our corporate tax base.

I find it difficult to criticise President Biden for doing that because we have been eating other people's lunches for a long time. One can only do that for so long before people get a little annoyed that they are getting thin while we are getting fat on their lunch. That starts to grate after a while. The US Government is going after our corporate tax base and the EU will do the same. We cannot really pretend our GDP can grow 20% in a year and that is a normal thing. It is not normal. It is Leprechaun economics. That is what some people in Ireland called it back when we had an enormous growth in our GDP in the past. Such growth seems fantastic on one level but it is not really fantastic because our corporate tax structure means our country does not benefit very much from it. It also means other countries are not able to raise taxes for their citizens. Not alone does it not benefit us, it makes us very unpopular internationally. International unpopularity has a price and I fear we will find ourselves increasingly isolated if we seek to defend our corporate tax structure.

A great deal of this plan is reactionary in respect of what has happened in the past. I agree that every country's economy has been hugely and detrimentally impacted by Covid-19. However, the Government has made it worse for this country because of the measures it introduced. The Government cannot say it saved lives with its measures and also say that all the detrimental effects are down to Covid. The detrimental effects and the economic problems are deeper in this country because of the measures that were taken here. That is a different debate but it is important to make the point that the Government cannot claim credit for one side of the equation and not accept responsibility on the other side.

With regard to our GDP, one thing it does is enable our borrowings to look sustainable. That is my major worry. Our borrowings as a proportion of GDP put us approximately mid-table on a European scale. That is if our GDP continues as it is. If our corporate tax structures change, or change is foisted upon us, then channelling large amounts of profits through Ireland becomes less attractive to companies. Suddenly, our GDP will not be as high as it has been and our borrowings will not look as sustainable. We will have a huge problem if that happens. We barely ran a surplus in this country up to 2019, even with almost full employment. That is worrying. The reason we struggled was the cost of servicing our existing borrowings. Now we are going to borrow more. I do not have a problem with Keynesian economics and the idea that a economy should be stimulated when it is in recession. I have a problem with the longer-term trajectory our economy is on and our reliance on a certain corporate tax structure to attract foreign direct investment. That needs to change.

I do not have time to make my final point but I have lots of confidence in my friend and colleague, Deputy Connolly, to make several illuminating points.

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