Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try to go through the submissions one by one. I do not know enough about the aviation point raised by Senator Buttimer. I will try to get some answers if possible.

Housing, especially social housing, was something of a recurring theme in the Senators' submissions. I am glad to hear that people are also talking about affordable housing. There is a problem with housing, and much of the focus is on the purchase of property. However, I believe that the private rental sector is the area where we have the biggest problem. Rents have doubled, and people who are earning decent salaries cannot afford to rent a house. If somebody wants to buy a house, according to the property pages in any newspaper, they can pay from €100,000 to €3.1 million. He or she may not get what he or she wants, but that choice is there for quite a few people. However, perhaps expectations need to be lowered.

The local property tax exemption for pyrite buildings was brought up by Senator Mulherin last week. In 2018, there will be a review of local property tax. That is the place to progress this matter. We must ensure that those areas where there are problems with houses and blockwork, similar to what happened with pyrite in Leinster, are the areas where the exemption will apply, such as in Mayo and Donegal.

I will not mention any individual vulture funds, but the legislation is in place since 2015. The funds are not regulated, but the service agents which operate on behalf of the funds can be regulated. That has been in place since 2015. The exact same laws and regulations apply for financial institutions. The laws that apply to the banks also apply to the vulture funds. That message has got lost for quite a few people. One of the initiatives I have taken was meeting the Banking Payments Federation of Ireland, BPFI, a number of months ago to put across my opinion that it was not doing its job well enough. Many Members of the Oireachtas, whether in the Lower House or this House, are trying to work on behalf of their clients, and while they may manage sometimes to get people on the phone, at other times they do not even get to speak to someone on the phone and are told that they will be conversed with by letter and not by email. I asked the Banking Payments Federation of Ireland to consider putting in place a structure where Members of Houses of the Oireachtas, who represent the public and who have an issue with a bank can deal with the account with the BPFI - all of the banks and the service agents. They should not be told that somebody else has to be spoken to about it or that it is a matter for the credit line further up the chain of command. Instead, Members of this Oireachtas should be able to meet the right people in order that some form of a deal can be hammered out.It is not concluded, but I am working on that.

In response to Senator Black, I will raise a couple of issues. This country is not a tax haven. I want to be very clear on that. I ask people to stop repeating the easy line that this country is a tax haven. There are some groups of countries that like to say that if a country levies taxes below a certain threshold it is a tax haven. Put it into context. We choose in this jurisdiction to have a low corporation tax, but we have high income taxes. That is our choice. Why do we do that? We do not have a large number of corporations. It is as simple as that. So we charge a rate of 12.5%. That is the nominal rate. The effective rate is about 10.5%. Our primary deductible is research and development. There are other jurisdictions with a much higher rate than ours. Some of them have twice the rate. Some of them have three times the rate. However, there are countries that have multiples of our nominal rate and a lower effective rate. Do not be fooled by what is being said by some.

I want to touch on Senator Devine's point about the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. She refers to a rate of 1%. That is correct, it is the correct rate of tax for those countries. We have tax arrangements with 73 countries so that there is not a double taxation of income. That is a structure that is in place with countries all over the world. The UK has tax arrangements with 140 countries. We have a much smaller number than them, and that is appropriate. I will name some Irish companies; Kerry and Glanbia. There are 100,000 people in the United States who are employed by Irish companies based there. Those companies pay tax in Ireland, because that is their domicile. There is a flow of income in both directions, not just one. However, everybody talks about only one direction. For 11% of those companies to pay a rate of 1% in Ireland is correct and appropriate. Glanbia, Kerry and so many others have thousands of employees in the United States and pay their taxes here. Nobody talks about that. Everybody says we are a tax haven because they only pay 1%. That is appropriate, correct, and in line with other tax jurisdictions.

Tax avoidance was referred to. We absolutely do not support tax avoidance. We have done everything we can in the base erosion and profit shifting, BEPS, process within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD. The world is globalised. Companies are not based in a single country. I went to the International Monetary Fund, IMF, meeting last autumn in Washington DC. As an example of what I am talking about, a Boeing airplane is made in 47 different countries. It is finalised and assembled in the US. The Bombardier airplane in manufactured in about 52 countries. Some 3,000 Bombardier staff work in Northern Ireland. That is the globalised world we live in, and yet people are saying that we are doing something wrong. We are not.

Senator Devine always seems to get it wrong, she seem to get the wrong end of the stick.