Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. At the heart of this case are old tax rulings, some going back over three decades. The arrangements in place at that time no longer exist. We have a stable tax environment. Indeed, it will become more fair as a result of the work we did in the finance committee by implementing pillar 2 of the OECD base erosion and profit shifting, of BEPS, process, which was agreed yesterday.

That will ensure large multinationals pay an appropriate and higher level of tax on their profits. That is welcome as part of a global agreement.

We also acknowledge that many of the tax arrangements that shone a negative spotlight on this State are no longer in existence. The double Irish, for example, has been closed down, but it took many years for the Government to move on that. The loopholes regarding stateless companies, which are at the core of this, again facilitated through our tax code and how it interacts with other jurisdictions, have been closed down. The fact that the tax arrangements in question were allowed to operate by successive governments for too long is an issue. Governments resisted closing them down for many years until succumbing to pressure from Sinn Féin and others. Regardless of what way the courts judge, the fact is that in 2011 an Irish subsidiary of Apple recorded €16 billion in profit and paid a 0.03% tax rate.

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