Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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106. To ask the Minister for Finance if he is aware that leading global tax researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Copenhagen (details supplied) have identified Ireland as a major tax haven and estimate that Ireland artificially attracts €130 billion in profits from other countries and gains €7.2 billion in tax revenue from this profit shifting; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11372/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that the Deputy is referring to a report "The Missing Profits of Nations" that examines the attribution of profits by multinational enterprises (MNEs) around the world.

The central analysis of the paper looks at links between the level of profit booked, and the level of wages paid in a country. This creates a misleading impression that corporate profits are or should be directly linked to wage levels rather than to the outputs of investment in all income generating activities such as investment in R&D, intangible assets, capital intensive machinery and investment in staff etc. A small country with high levels of high value adding FDI relative to the size of the domestic economy will of course, appear like an outlier in this type of analysis.

Ireland has a competitive corporation tax rate, an attractive and stable tax regime and a strong reputation and commitment to transparency. Ireland's tax regime is designed to encourage the location of real, substantive and high-value adding investment in the country. This is evidenced by the substantial number of MNEs who have chosen Ireland as their home and the hundreds of thousands of both direct and indirect jobs they contribute to the economy.

Ireland is a strong supporter of the OECD BEPS process and has a track record on taking action on tax planning and in implementing commitments made at international level to support tax transparency including through the implementation of the EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directives.

Furthermore, Ireland fully supports the two pillared solution to address the challenges brought about by the digitalisation of the economy and is actively engaged at the OECD to follow through on that agreement. The EU Minimum Tax Directive was agreed in December and will ensure that large MNEs will pay a minimum effective tax rate of 15%. It is my intention to bring forward legislation in this years Finance Bill to transpose Directive into domestic legislation before the end of the year.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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108. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will outline any role or involvement he has in the proposed Coillte/Gresham House deal in relation to the future of Irish forestry; his views on the tax treatment of such an investment plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11403/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I should say that policy responsibility for the development of forestry in Ireland is within the remit of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and of course Coillte. I understand that the development of the investment fund referred to by the Deputy arises in the context of the plan to expand forest cover in Ireland to meet climate change targets.

In the context of the issue raised by the Deputy, I can outline the role of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF). For ISIF its statutory mandate is what it refers to as a “double bottom line” mandate of investing for a commercial return and investing to support economic activity and employment in Ireland. ISIF has disclosed that it is investing €25m as part of a wider €200m fund, which will acquire land from farmers and private landowners who wish to sell to the fund at market rates.

ISIF has also informed me that its investment is part of both its Food & Agriculture and wider €1bn climate action investment programme, complementing its existing investments in forestry, renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy storage, and generating further progress in Ireland’s transition to a Net Zero economy.

ISIF complies with all applicable laws including tax law. The tax treatment of the Fund is set out at note 6 on page 189 of the NTMA’s 2021 Annual Report.