Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I neglected to acknowledge the Labour Party for facilitating a pairing arrangement with Deputy Dillon. Deputy Dillon had a baby last week and I insisted that he take his two weeks paternity leave. I am grateful that the Labour Party is covering for that.

I point out to Deputy Paul Murphy that our low corporation profit tax rate is one of the reasons we receive so much in corporation profit tax.

We take in about €10 billion a year in corporation profit tax, which is roughly double what the average European country takes. Some people are seized by a high tax ideology, who believe that higher taxes always mean higher revenues. That is not always the case. This is an example of where lower taxes mean higher revenues, which we use to invest in health, education, welfare and other things. We do not want to jeopardise that.

What is going on is not just about tax justice or big companies paying their fair share of tax, which they should. It is also about big countries trying to get a bigger slice of the pie at the expense of smaller countries. The United Kingdom has negotiated a carve-out to protect the City of London and the US has negotiated a carve-out so that the EU drops the digital tax. We need to defend our position too.

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