By Angela Nagle and Peter Ryan After the Irish government was recently forced to accept a 15% global minimum tax rate reform led by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), people wanted an answer to the obvious question. Would the multinationals leave? And would this destroy the entire economic model the country had become heavily reliant upon? Ireland’s experts - economists, business leaders, academics - all seemed certain of the same conclusion, that there is nothing much to worry about.
The interesting scenario in this will be when (not if) Sinn Féin lead the next government. Will they just become another version of FF/FG? They've very quietly been shifting their position in the last 5 years (when is the last time you heard them mention a Wealth Tax for example)? And they always stated that corporation tax was not a sacred cow, again something we haven't heard in recent times.
They hold the potential to represent a true change in Irish politics, but unfortunately I believe they will take to the Mercs & perks like ducks to water.
They hold a very broad coalition of people together while they are in opposition. Once they go into government and disappoint these people with their actions... will those people become disillusioned and turn on them, or will they become more entrenched??
Dec 18, 2021·edited Dec 18, 2021Liked by Angela Nagle
No worries if you've already got the series fully mapped out, but one thing I'd be interested to see is a comparison between Ireland's and India's economic trajectories after each attained independence. Obviously the two countries are very different in many ways. But given that they both became independent of British colonization within about 30 years of each other and they've both attempted to leapfrog over the traditional pattern of developing through manufacturing partially through a large services sector dominated by multinational corporations, I wonder if they've dealt with some similar challenges.
Edited to add: another similarity between India's present and Ireland's past (and perhaps future if the possibility you suggested comes to pass) is that many of India's best and brightest are immigrating.
Would you mind elaborating on how you derived these statistics from the linked government report? A couple years ago, I tried to find an estimate of what percentage of Irish GDP is foreign companies doing tax abitrage and gave up. I'm not suggesting you're wrong, just that I want to be sure I understand what data you're using.
"Today, these grafted-on multinationals account for 90% of exports, 80% of value-added, and source only 11% of materials and 6% of services from the domestic Irish economy (Irish Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment)."
The interesting scenario in this will be when (not if) Sinn Féin lead the next government. Will they just become another version of FF/FG? They've very quietly been shifting their position in the last 5 years (when is the last time you heard them mention a Wealth Tax for example)? And they always stated that corporation tax was not a sacred cow, again something we haven't heard in recent times.
They hold the potential to represent a true change in Irish politics, but unfortunately I believe they will take to the Mercs & perks like ducks to water.
They hold a very broad coalition of people together while they are in opposition. Once they go into government and disappoint these people with their actions... will those people become disillusioned and turn on them, or will they become more entrenched??
Very good article - Thank You
No worries if you've already got the series fully mapped out, but one thing I'd be interested to see is a comparison between Ireland's and India's economic trajectories after each attained independence. Obviously the two countries are very different in many ways. But given that they both became independent of British colonization within about 30 years of each other and they've both attempted to leapfrog over the traditional pattern of developing through manufacturing partially through a large services sector dominated by multinational corporations, I wonder if they've dealt with some similar challenges.
Edited to add: another similarity between India's present and Ireland's past (and perhaps future if the possibility you suggested comes to pass) is that many of India's best and brightest are immigrating.
Would you mind elaborating on how you derived these statistics from the linked government report? A couple years ago, I tried to find an estimate of what percentage of Irish GDP is foreign companies doing tax abitrage and gave up. I'm not suggesting you're wrong, just that I want to be sure I understand what data you're using.
"Today, these grafted-on multinationals account for 90% of exports, 80% of value-added, and source only 11% of materials and 6% of services from the domestic Irish economy (Irish Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment)."