Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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52. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of times his officials have met, physically, by teleconferencing or otherwise with officials of the European Union Commission, regarding the tax affairs of Apple since the Commission officially launched its investigation into the matter; the number of documents requested; and the number sent to the Commission as part of the inquiry. [12284/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Following the launch of formal state aid investigations by the Competition Directorate of the European Commission into tax rulings provided to a number of companies in various Member States of the European Union, there has been ongoing contact between my officials and EU Commission officials on the matter, including two meetings with the Competition Directorate case team.

As the Commission have acknowledged, Ireland has co-operated fully with the process to date and will continue to do so.

As part of this formal investigation, the Commission wrote to Ireland in June 2014 to ask for our response to their concerns in relation to the particular case, and this correspondence is published on the Commission's competition website.  

Ireland has responded to this letter, comprehensively addressing the Commission's concerns and making it clear that the appropriate amount of Irish tax was charged in accordance with the relevant legislation, that no selective advantage was given and that there was no State aid.

I am not however in a position to comment further on the specific details of our response to the Commission as the matter is subject to a formal process of investigation and relates to a specific taxpayer.

I would like to emphasise that, while the Commission has opened a formal investigation in relation to one particular case involving Ireland, it has not made a final determination in the matter. 

While it would not be appropriate to speculate on the outcome at this stage, it is my view that there was no breach of State aid rules in this case and that the legislative provisions were correctly applied.