Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Ireland is facing a significant economic storm. The threatened tariff war with the United States could do immense damage to the current Irish economic model. Proposed changes to the US corporation tax could be catastrophic in terms of the Irish economy. Successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments have put all our economic eggs in bargain basement corporation taxes. For sure, FDI is good and needs to be nurtured and promoted, but FDI is more mobile than indigenous businesses and it could move with ease depending on the prevailing international economic winds. Ireland is currently facing into headwinds blowing against us from the United States. Tariffs will decimate the Irish economy. Irish exports to the United States, relative to other European counties, are far more. Last year, we exported €72 billion worth of goods, €58 billion of which were pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Under the threatened tariffs, these products could become much more expensive and demand could fall. Many of the businesses will not accept that fall in demand and could shift their production elsewhere.

Then there is the whole issue of corporation tax. A significant change to US corporation tax could actually gut the taxation system in this country. It would create a huge hole in our budget. It could lead to a situation where we have to cut public services, infrastructural spend and maybe even increase taxes in this State. Ireland is looking at, potentially, a fall in jobs, an increase in taxes and a fall in GDP. Ireland has not seen a potential economic shock such as this for at least two decades. The actual word "austerity" could be discussed in this Chamber again if the US proceeds with this particular tariff war.

One of the things that amazes me so much is that so little is being done regarding this potential economic existential threat by this Government. In fact, this bubble has spent more time fighting a speaking rights row with regard to Government-supporting TDs' speaking time than it has actually developing a system to help in this regard. I asked the Minister for Finance a couple of weeks ago what he had done and who he had engaged with in terms of senior US Administration to mitigate the potential damage as a result of the tariff war and the Minister said he has no responsibility to the Chamber with regard to answering such a question. I could not believe it. This morning, the Minister for Finance was on "Morning Ireland", in which he was asked what the Government's strategy is to deal with trying to persuade the US not to proceed with tariffs against Ireland and his answer, basically, was that we have to show that there is a reciprocal relationship of benefit between the two counties.

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