I believe the time has come to agree to tax harmonisation. There are two separate issues here. One is whether we should have a low rate of corporation tax , and the other is whether we should agree to qualified majority voting in terms of taxation. We already have various measures, for example VAT, where we agree to harmonise rates within various European countries. I have always been uncomfortable with the notion that we could take subsidies from richer European countries while undercutting their rates of corporation tax with a lower one. Whether one is uncomfortable about it, it is in our own selfish national interests which, I acknowledge, justifies it. However, we have reached a point where it is no longer in our selfish national interests to do so for precisely the reasons Senator O'Toole mentioned. It will shortly be in our selfish national interests to defend our relatively low corporation tax rate against countries that want an even lower one. The time has clearly come where principle, convenience and pragmatism intersect. We should be pushing, therefore, for some level of harmonisation – not a specific rate – but perhaps a common low rate on which we could all agree.