I wish to raise the concern about contingency planning in the event of decreasing levels of foreign direct investment in Ireland as a result of the implementation of the global and European minimum corporation tax rate. Ireland has used our corporation tax rate as a very effective economic development tool, which has successfully resulted in a flood of multinational investment into the country on the back of favourable conditions. However, a decision made in October 2021, that Ireland would accede to a minimum global rate of 15%, which is up from 12.5%, will undoubtedly have ramifications for our future ability to attract investment. The implementation of the OECD agreement will pose major challenges to Ireland given that Department of Finance officials believe there will be a projected loss of income to the Exchequer of at least €2 billion annually.

The summer economic statement, announced last week, cautions of "a clear vulnerability for the public finances" from the "concentration risk" of ten multinational firms now paying half of all corporation tax and €1 in every €8 collected in tax. In response, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council said these corporation tax receipts "should not be relied on to fund permanent spending increases". That is possibly because of the potential impact on multinational investment confidence in the country.

Given our acute vulnerability, laid bare by many respected commentators, should we explore and review this decision? The decision was made at a time when the global economy was on a more stable footing. Other countries are reviewing their position in the context of global economic factors. Last week, for example, Hungary, which initially supported the minimum rate, has now refused to implement the agreement, with other voices of opposition growing. Indeed, last week the Tánaiste's party colleagues in Fine Gael voted against the motion on a resolution condemning Hungary for taking this action.

Furthermore, the issue was removed from May’s meeting of ECOFIN because agreement was unreachable. We need now more than ever to retain our blue-chip influence. We are entering into a most uncertain period. There is the economic impact of war in Ukraine, we have soaring inflation, a cost-of-living crisis is engulfing Europe and the possibility of a recession is lingering. With the changes in the economic and geopolitical environment in the past nine months, we urgently need to have a defined contingency plan around how we will remain competitive and continue to attract foreign direct investment, FDI, given these proposed global tax changes. It is clear that we now need a comprehensive, whole-of-government approach. The change in our corporation tax rate will seriously impact the Exchequer's buoyancy, something which has allowed us to address issues like the cost-of-living crisis, by using a robust tax take to redistribute to those families who need it at budget time. What plans are in place to address this matter so that as a country we can make decisions that are firmly in our national interest?

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. As the Deputy knows, Hungary is holding up the European ratification of the international agreement on tax at the moment. Their decision to do so has consequences. The United States, for example, has indicated that it will suspend its double taxation agreement with Hungary. One can imagine that if we were to adopt the same approach and if the US were to suspend its tax agreements with Ireland that would not be a position that we would like to be in, given the amount of US investments that we have in Ireland at the moment and have had for decades.

It is relevant to say that our low corporation profit tax rate, which is 12.5%, has been a great success. There are some people who believe that increasing taxes always means higher revenues and that reducing taxes always means lower revenues. That clearly is not always the case. The fact that we have a low corporation profit tax means that we take in more revenue and get in more investments. If you take the amount of corporation profit tax paid in Ireland and divide it by the number of people in the country, we get two- or three-times revenue in than the average EU country. Therefore, low taxes can result in higher revenues. This is a perfect example of where that works.

We have signed up to an international agreement to raise our rate to 15%, but that is only for the very largest companies and there will be some changes as to how the base is calculated. We will probably gain on the 15% but lose a bit on the way the base is calculated. We think it makes sense from an enterprise and economic policy point of view that we should be inside the tent and that we should be part of the agreement. Ireland is not a tax haven. We do not want to be perceived as a tax haven. We think that it makes sense to be inside the agreement. That is one of the reasons why we supported it.

We anticipate that this year we will see record corporation profit tax receipts and that that will continue to rise. The pipeline for FDI is really, really strong. We think that revenues will continue to rise over the next couple of years, but we cannot take that for granted. They will fall at some point. That is why it is important that we use these corporation profit taxes on companies that are coming in in a sensible way. One way we are doing that is by investing a lot into capital, into infrastructure and into things that you only have to build once and therefore maintain after, for example, the metro, the national broadband plan and the housing programme. It makes sense to put these receipts into capital investment, because of the huge deficits that are there in infrastructure, but also to help the economy grow in the future. If we get into a surplus position, and that may well happen, we can put some of it away, either into a rainy-day fund like we did before or perhaps into the Social Insurance Fund to help-----

I thank the Tánaiste.

-----to fund the future costs of pensions.

I thank the Tánaiste for clarifying that and for making it clear that the Government will not be reviewing the position. In that context, we have look to the future. I note that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Department of Finance called for submissions in regard to enterprise policy. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment gave less than one month to people to make submissions. It restricted the submissions to 1,500 words. There are many companies out there that would like to make a contribution to that policy-making process but the bottom line is one needs much longer and a more detailed submission if the people involved are to get the message across. It is clear that we need a whole-of-government approach to development in particular of research capability. This is key to ensuring the robustness of the offer that we are able to make to multinational companies and to make them interested in being involved here in Ireland. I ask the Tánaiste to extend the time of the submissions for both the Department of Finance and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

I have to ask the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, to come back to the Deputy later in relation to the finance side. In terms of my own Department’s consultation on the new enterprise White Paper, the deadline is 5 p.m. on Friday, 29 July. The consultation documents ask that submissions be no longer than 1,500 words, but they do not have to be so if somebody wants to make a longer submission of 2,000 words or 10,000 words, we will still accept it. It is not that it has to be less than 1,500 words. Because it is not a statutory consultation, we can facilitate an extension of the deadline of 29 July. All that we ask is that any organisation or any person who wants to make a submission later than that emails us to let us know so that we can have an idea as to when it will come in. The e-mail address is enterprisepolicy@enterprise.gov.ie.