Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and the Bill and wish to make a few general points. The primary purpose of the legislation is to support the further development of the International Financial Services Centre which has been one of the outstanding successes of the last 20 years. While I claim no credit, I was privileged to attend as an observer some of the early meetings on the centre in late 1986 when Fianna Fáil was still in Opposition and in 1987 as it entered Government. The International Financial Services Centre is the outstanding example of a policy initiative developed in Opposition, put to the electorate during a general election campaign and very promptly implemented and fast-tracked in Government. While I remember arguments about whether 5,000 or 10,000 jobs would eventually be created, the Minister of State referred in his speech to 17,000. The centre has succeeded beyond what anyone envisaged was possible. We began with a belief that a niche existed which Ireland could fill but we have developed something which is much more than a niche.

The IFSC is a full blown centre which competes in its own right with many other important centres around the globe. It has been a terrific success story because a high priority has always been given by the Government to addressing any concerns which have been expressed as the centre developed. It shows what can be achieved when one applies all of the resources of the State to a particular development. The centre was especially valuable in 1987 when the economy was at rock bottom and the Government was seeking development opportunities which would not require a great deal of up-front investment. The money for such investments was simply not available. Great credit is due to former Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, who ran with the idea and to senior officials, including Mr. Pádraig Ó hUigínn, in the Departments of the Taoiseach and Finance and the Central Bank.

The fears expressed by Senator McDowell about lost revenue miss the point. If we did not have an extremely attractive corporate tax regime, firms would simply not have come to Ireland and the IFSC would never have got off the ground. The idea of lost revenue is illusory. There are many countries, of which Germany is the obvious example, which have struggled for years to maintain corporate tax revenue and failed to increase it. If I remember correctly, corporate tax revenue in Ireland was of the order of £320 million in 1986 and is many multiples of that today. Financial services alone account for €700 million, which represents many schools and hospitals and is very valuable.