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

Those are scare tactics in order to justify the pitifully low levels of tax these corporations are asked to pay. As even the US Chamber of Commerce and representatives of many of these multinationals have said, the reason they are here is not primarily or exclusively the tax rate.

It is to do with the fact that we are an English-speaking country, we are within the European market, we have an educated workforce, and we used to have - not now, because of the lack of public investment - a decent water infrastructure and a proper energy infrastructure. The Government would be doing far better collecting some taxes off these corporations at a reasonable rate, comparable with what ordinary workers pay, in order to fund the investment in education, higher education, water and energy infrastructure and all of the things that can sustain investment and develop the economy in the mean time.

However, what I asked the Tánaiste was how he thinks it is justified to try to minimise international efforts to make these corporations to pay a little bit more tax. He has put huge energy into that but he thinks it is okay to whack a carbon tax on the elderly, sick and vulnerable, some of whom will suffer needless death this winter because of the cold and because of the energy price hikes and carbon tax, and he thinks it is okay that ordinary workers in this country pay three times the proportion of their incomes in taxes that these corporations pay.

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