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

The Apple ruling confirms Governments colluded systematically over more than a decade with the efforts of Apple to avoid tax and deprive the people of €14 billion when they were on their knees being crucified with austerity. It is worth remembering that in 2013, we were also starting the process of getting rid of the biggest property portfolio in the world via NAMA and selling it off at fire sale prices to vulture funds and international investors rather than using it for social and affordable housing. Had we not done that, we would not have the housing crisis we are now facing, we would not have 14,500 people homeless, we would not have more than 100,000 families on housing lists and we would not have house prices that are unaffordable for the vast majority of workers. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and others combined to stand with tax-avoiding, staggeringly wealthy corporations like Apple and betrayed the people when they were being crucified. We are still living with the consequences and we will be for decades, as the Central Bank has confirmed. We are still facing decades of housing crisis.

Is that an overstatement of the level of collusion? I decided to return to the discussion back in 2013 in the finance committee, of which I was a member. On Wednesday, 3 July I put forward a motion asking that Apple, Google and Facebook be brought in to be questioned – just to be questioned – about what had emerged in the United States with the allegations of aggressive tax avoidance using Ireland and subsidiaries that did not actually exist to avoid billions of euro in tax. Guess who voted against the motion? It was Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party and a so-called Independent called Stephen Donnelly, who is now a Government Minister. The names are interesting when one looks at them: Regina Doherty, Stephen Donnelly, Paschal Donohoe, Timmy Dooley, Sean Fleming, Simon Harris, Aideen Hayden and Aodhán Ó Ríordáin. All these people voted against just bringing in Apple to answer questions about the revelations that had emerged about its use of Ireland as a tax haven and the use of subsidiaries that did not exist - they did not have tables, chairs or staff – and through which it was siphoning profits to avoid paying tax. They would not even allow Apple to be questioned, never mind spending millions defending them when three years later, the European Commission started a legal action against the company.

We are paying a very bitter price. Not only are we paying a bitter price for that collusion and that prioritisation by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael of corporate interests over the needs of ordinary people for housing, services and infrastructure, but it is still going on. There is about €200 billion in write-down tax expenditure still going to the same multinationals which have now found new ways to do what Apple did to avoid its tax liabilities and the Government is still colluding with them.

See this speech in context