This country appears to be developing a dreadful image problem Down Under. Which is a pity, considering such a good lump of our workforce has decamped there. So what can Ireland do about it?
For the last few years, Australian newspapers have delighted in purveying stories about the supposed boozed-up shenanigans of Irish emigrants, many of them construction workers. It’s more Paddy the Plastered than Paddy the Plasterer.
This country is now also routinely portrayed in Australia as some sort of corporation tax-grabbing nirvana for financial fly-by-nights.
Ireland’s bad financial reputation in Australia actually started more than a decade ago, when an IFSC reinsurance outlet figured in the 2001 demise of HIH, then Australia’s biggest ever corporate collapse. In March this year Aussie media outlets exploded in a fit of pique when it was revealed that Apple was shifting most of its earnings from there to “low-tax” Ireland.
Google and others were slammed for doing likewise, and commentators climbed over each other calling for Ireland to be brought to book.
That most of the multinationals’ cash is catapulted on to even lower-tax Caribbean havens, leaving barely a scrap for the Irish exchequer, didn’t figure much.
This week, it emerged that Airbnb, a $10 billion-valued accommodation-sharing web service, is also shifting its Australian earnings to Ireland, where it has recently established a network of unlimited companies. Sharing your flat is fine, apparently. Sharing financial details for public scrutiny is not.
Richard Bruton, the jobs Minister, was pressed while on a trade mission Down Under last week over Ireland's use as a fiscal rat run by tax-avoiding US multinationals. He sang the usual Government line about international co-operation but was branded a "hypocrite" in the Aussie press.
The bald truth is that much of this image problem is of Ireland’s own making. Sure, the multinationals usually exploit how the Irish tax code interacts with the codes of other nations. But as Michael Noonan’s closing of the “stateless” Irish-US loophole from this end last year showed, Ireland can move unilaterally when required.
The budget next month presents the Government with a clear opportunity to close more of these loopholes, such as the famed “Double Irish”. Just make sure someone tells the Aussies about it.
