Into the limelight: tax haven Ireland
Abstract
The political establishment are appealing against the EU Commission’s ruling that Apple should pay e13 billion to Irish taxpayers - plus interest that will amount to between an extra e5 and e6 billion. They cite the ‘reputational damage’ that might follow acceptance of such a ruling. There was not, however, a similar level of concern when the UN found that Ireland’s ban on abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormality constituted ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading’ treatment. The linking of the interest of the Irish state to those of a global corporation is only an accentuation of an already established pattern. The state has a long established pattern of handing over its natural resources to foreign multi-nationals. It scores remarkably well on the Heritage Foundation’s, ‘Freedom Index’. It comes in eighth place in the world’s wish list for neoliberal wonderlands.