Apple taxes: ‘Dublin-Shannon bullet train’ among ideas TDs advance for €14bn

Taoiseach Simon Harris said he anticipates clarity on where Apple’s €14bn taxes will be invested on Budget day.
The Fine Gael leader told party colleagues that he hopes the principles and parameters on what to do with the taxes will be set out on October 1st next.
As the Dáil returned on Wednesday, Opposition TDs were not short of ideas on how the money should be spent, with Independent TD Michael Healy-Rae calling for the funds to go towards developing a bullet train from Dublin to Shannon, Co Clare.
During a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight on Wednesday evening, the Kerry TD said the State should be prudent but imaginative with the funds and said a bullet train connecting Dublin Airport to Shannon Airport would be a “game-changer for this country”.
Although “a bit ambitious when you consider that we don’t have a rail track going out to Dublin Airport at present,” he said there is no reason why Ireland should not have a bullet train, adding that the State not only had funds but also the engineering expertise.
However, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said the 320km/h trains were “really only possible in Japan because of population densities they have and the way they do planning”.
“I’m not sure we’re going to get to the bullet speed that you’re making a case for,” he said, adding that he was sure decisions made in the coming years would lead to a better, cleaner and faster rail network.
Earlier, Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the money should be invested in hospitals and in “ending the housing crisis”, which he said had been created by the Government.
Mr Doherty was speaking during a more than two hour Dáil debate on the Apple State aid case which ruled that Apple owed the State more than €13 billion in tax. With interest the total fund stood at €14.1 billion on September 9th.
Green Party TD Brian Leddin said decisions on what to do with the tax windfall had to be informed by the need to be “far more strategic about how our country develops” and the opportunity to “rebalance our island” based on an expected one million population growth over the next 15 years.
The decision to indicate broad priorities for the Apple windfall was taken at a meeting of party leaders held on Monday evening with Minister for Finance Jack Chambers and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe.
Mr Chambers outlined for coalition leaders that it would not be used for current expenditure or to narrow the tax base and that a focus would be on an examination of infrastructure investments and how that might overlap with existing capital plans.
Principles will also be developed around investment in strategic assets and public infrastructure.
Earlier Minister Chambers told the Dáil it was right to appeal the original 2016 European Commission ruling on State aid because it was “important Ireland defended its own tax regime”.
[ Should Ireland give the Apple tax billions to poorer countries?Opens in new window ]
He stressed that the judgment is not “a judgment against the Irish taxation system – the CJEU’s (Court of Justice of the European Union) finding relates to the specific circumstances of the particular case”.
The Minister was speaking as he opened the more than two hour Dáil debate on the Apple State aid case which ruled that Apple owed the State more than €13 billion in tax. With interest the total fund stood at €14.1 billion on September 9th.
The Minister said the State had to defend the “legal principle of national tax sovereignty”, a defence that cost the State €10 million in legal fees.
[ US, not Ireland, facilitated Apple’s €13bn tax-avoidance structureOpens in new window ]
Apple was already separately appealing the case, Mr Chambers said.
But Mr Doherty said “you’re disappointed the taxes that were supposed to be paid to us when your party was cutting the blind pension, the minimum wage, when you were closing hospital beds and home supports, are being paid to us now”.
The Sinn Féin TD said the arrangement with Apple was a “sweetheart deal” where two subsidiaries with no premises, no staff, existed on paper only and recorded €104 billion of profit over a decade.
He had never seen the Government “bat so hard as you’re batting for this one company” rather than for those needing scoliosis treatment or mental health treatment.
Labour finance spokesman Ged Nash said it would be hard to accept that this kind of arrangement was unique in Europe. “It would be extreme of us in this country to think that Ireland is the only and original sinner.”
[ Energy credits and welfare lump-sums would be part of €1.5bn cost-of-living budget packageOpens in new window ]
Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall said serious questions remain about the Government breaking State aid rules, but the Government is just “sweeping that under the carpet”.