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

I believe the Minister stated that the projected revenues for next year are €24 billion. Will the Minister confirm that?

Could the Minister tell us what are the corresponding projected pre-tax profits? Working back on previous years, that would suggest €400 billion of pre-tax profits. I would be interested if the Minister could confirm that.

Those allowances, credits, etc., are expenditures. They are tax expenditures. That is public money given back to companies that are making absolutely enormous profits.

The Minister says that it is in law. It is, but we do not really scrutinise to the degree we should these tax expenditures. The research and development tax credit, for example, is €800 million. It is seriously questionable whether most of that going to a small number of multinationals, as opposed, for example, to going into research and innovation, where we have one of the lowest levels of public expenditure in the European Union, is a good expenditure of public money.

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