John Whelan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I spoke to members of a family last week which received a small tax rebate and a year later, the Revenue Commissioners decided it was an overpayment and sent debt collectors after them with penalties. The issue has been discussed in Europe for some time and Ms Nessa Childers, MEP has brought it up when speaking about tax justice. We are the envy of Europe and the UK with what was regarded as a very attractive 12.5% corporation tax. Maybe I naively thought that this tax rate was being paid by multinationals but it has been proven otherwise. It not just Apple as the issue involves Starbucks, Google and Facebook. Of course, we welcome the jobs but are we saying we will have the jobs but the companies do not have to pay the 12.5% tax rate? The effective rate apparently being paid by some of the multinationals is-----