On behalf of the Rural Independent Group, I salute and support the brave members of An Garda Síochána and wish them well in their recovery.

Ireland has become a country of the establishment. In Ireland, citizens, that is the voters, are consulted every four or five years at the time of a general election. However, institutions that are part of, or close to, the State have regular and daily access to Ministers, power and Government decision-making. In fact, many Departments even pay these organisations to provide them with advice. Is it any wonder then that the system is stacked against the ordinary man and woman?

Today, and every day, Irish people are hammered by the Government's approach to taxation. The marginal rate of tax, PRSI and USC on average workers now rests at 52%, while on the other hand the rate of corporation tax is 12.5%. This represents a difference of nearly 40 percentage points and contrasts with Germany, where an average worker pays 28% in income tax and corporation tax is 26%. In Germany, the same loopholes do not exist for large corporations and investment funds to evade paying tax while in Ireland, these loopholes mean that large investment funds, corporations and cuckoo funds pay little or no tax at all. Google, one of the world's richest companies, was facilitated to move €63 billion in profit out of Ireland in 2019 and pay €263 million in taxes, thus representing an effective tax rate of 0.4%. This means that for every €100 earned by Google it paid 40 cents in tax, but out of every €100 earned by the average worker in Ireland in 2019 he or she paid a staggering €52 in tax.

It is obvious what is going on. One does not need to be a scientist to see who is getting special treatment here. It is an utter disgrace of gigantic proportions to see the deep rot and hugely significant issues that are conveniently never debated in this House. This needs to change. The Government needs to come clean here. Successive Governments have turned a blind eye to this behaviour and conveniently swept it under the carpet. That does not resemble a socially just or democratic country. These are not the values that our founding fathers fought for, those men and women who were brave and some of whom paid the ultimate price. They were patriots and selfless men and women. They certainly did not pay the ultimate price to allow, 100 years on, constant exploitation by foreign multinational corporations and to see our people punished and abused in that way. As I said earlier, we celebrate them and we should live up to their ideals and standards.

I always have to fundamentally disagree with this label "the establishment". Every Deputy in this House is elected at every general election. I have equal respect for all Deputies by dint of the fact that they have been elected. It is too easy a label to throw out there and it is deliberately done to undermine people, when we have a strong, functioning democracy in Ireland compared to other countries. We also continue to reform our Parliament and we facilitate a whole range of groups in society to access parliamentarians, to influence policy formulation and to advocate for their interests. There are aspects of our system that continually need reform but we should always affirm the strengths of Irish democracy as the world becomes more authoritarian.

Regarding taxation, I do not know whether the Deputy is saying that 12.5% for multinationals is too low or is wrong as part of a wider model. When he speaks about those who lost their lives or fought in the War of Independence, I often think of Seán Lemass who was 16 years of age when he was in the General Post Office, GPO, in 1916. He is a person worth studying in terms of how his life evolved. He was an internationalist, he believed in joining international rules-based organisations and he was way ahead of his time in supporting access to the Common Market. In the early 1960s he could see what was coming downstream and he wanted to prepare Ireland for it. He did much work to get Ireland ready to join the EU, which is probably one of the best things this country ever did. I am particularly proud of Fianna Fáil's role in leading Ireland into the EU because it turned us from being an inward, insular island into a far more outward economy. We have benefited significantly because of our membership of the EU on so many fronts.

On the foreign direct investment model, over the past 50 years, since we decided to look outwards, we have attracted some of the best manufacturing facilities to Ireland, whether it is the Intels, Hewlett Packards or Apples of this world or the pharmaceuticals. Only this week, Pfizer announced that mRNA vaccine technology will come to Ireland to be manufactured in Grange Castle. That places Ireland at the centre of the manufacturing of vaccine substances which can be used in Europe and all over the world because it is the fastest way to get vaccines out across the world. That model will change over time and the OECD is looking at the broader framework governing corporate taxation. However, it has worked for Ireland as a small island, which has to compete with other big players in the economic field. We have attracted thousands of good-quality jobs in the farming and technology industries as well as the digital sector.

I accept that multinationals came here back in the 1980s and 1990s; they were in Clonmel. Merck Sharp and Dohme and other companies are doing great work. I am saying that 40 years on we need to review taxation. Why is the ordinary worker only paying 26% in Germany and 52% here? There are no tax havens for those multinational companies in Germany because they respect its people. We had a different issue regarding Germany last week.

The Taoiseach mentioned Seán Lemass. He and his Government colleagues bear no resemblance to those fine men and women of 1916 and 1921. None whatsoever. They have sold out to the EU. We see that with fisheries. Deputy Michael Collins has apologised for his absence from the House as he is standing this morning with the fishermen in Cork. We see it with our agricultural policy, as Deputy Verona Murphy referenced. The Government is beholden to Europe and anybody that keeps it in power. All these organisations have too much access to the Taoiseach and his Ministers. The OECD has questions to answer as well. We need to come clean, open our eyes, be fair to our people and treat them with respect. The Taoiseach is some man to lecture about good democracy when he has trampled on democracy for the past 14 months and will do so again today by voting for more draconian measures. He has some cheek.

The Irish taxation system is one of the more progressive, globally. Those who earn the most, pay the most. The overall taxation framework in Germany is much more onerous than is the case here if one takes all the social insurance and contributions that have to be made into account. The Deputy is not comparing like with like there. If he is advocating that we leave the EU, I disagree with him. We have to work for a stronger EU into the future in the context of global challenges, the most recent being the cybersecurity attack on the country and its health service. Whether it is climate change, energy efficiency or working together, if we work collectively with others, Europe will provide us with the most effective way out. There is also, of course, the trading and selling of goods and services into a huge market, which is significant for Irish companies. They create jobs by selling the goods they make and services they provide into that market.