Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. We will lay out next Tuesday what our forecasts are for corporation tax receipts and indeed receipts under every other tax head for the next number of years. That will be the considered view of my Department as to what we expect to receive over the coming years. Deputy Burke is right that these companies that contribute the vast bulk of our corporation tax receipts have substantial operations in Ireland. Industrial Development Authority, IDA, clients now directly employ in excess of 300,000 people at this point in time and many more people indirectly. Earlier this week we had a succession of very positive jobs announcements for Ireland because we are a country that is pro-business, because we welcome capital and investment and job creation in our country.

In reply to Deputy Murphy, we are investing more in public capital. It will be more than €13 billion next year. There are capacity constraints. If we were to add many billions more in a short period of time you would not get value for money first of all, and there are constraints in planning, in housing and in labour and we have to address all of those through reforms and in some instances through investment as well. Ireland is not a tax haven. Ireland is part of a global initiative to reform the operation of corporate tax and we are implementing pillar 2 of the OECD agreement in the Finance Bill later this year. I look forward to the Deputy's engagement and participation in that. Ireland is at the table now, directly negotiating, influencing and shaping pillar 1, which deals with the potential reallocation of taxing rights in respect of the profits of global multinational corporations. We are very much part of a global effort to address the issue of how we tax corporate profits into the future. We have, up to now, introduced and implemented a whole range of reforms across corporate tax.

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