Richard Boyd Barrett: Calls for Digital Tax to Fund Health Services
Richard Boyd Barrett criticises the Taoiseach's resistance to a digital tax and argues that multinationals should pay more to fund health services and critical infrastructure in the wake of Covid-19. He linked underfunded public services to the pandemic's economic shutdown and warned against a return to pre-Covid neoliberal policies.
Main argument against government's stance
He accused the government and the Taoiseach of rhetoric about a "new normal" while in practice seeking a quick return to the status quo that favours big corporations. He said that stance reveals a broader unwillingness to hold multinational companies to account for aggressive tax avoidance.
Digital tax and the Apple ruling
He pointed to the Taoiseach's remarks on the digital tax and said they expose an inclination to side with corporate interests - citing the Apple ruling and the government's apparent defence of multinational tax arrangements. He noted that some jobs defended in those cases are "important jobs in Cork," but argued that this should not justify protecting aggressive tax avoidance.
Funding health and public services
He argued that taxing large, highly profitable corporations could finance the health services, childcare, education and water infrastructure on which society depends. He warned that Ireland's health capacity was already too low before Covid-19 - "operating at 100% capacity" - and that insufficient funding leaves the economy vulnerable to shutdowns during crises.
Warning on returning to pre-Covid neoliberalism
He urged a fundamental shift away from neoliberalism after the pandemic, saying that unless governments prioritise massive public investment over simply stimulating small and medium enterprises, the country and Europe risk future disasters. He framed investment in public services as essential to preventing the next crisis from collapsing the economy.
Appeal to national and European leaders
He called on European leaders and the new Taoiseach to recognise the need for change and to support international tax reform so multinational corporations contribute their fair share to the public goods that sustain them.
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The advent of Covid-19 has genuinely put the world and Europe at an existential crossroads and there's been a lot of woolly words of recognition of that fact about the need to move forward to a new normal to something different and better and to learn the lessons of the Covid pandemic. pandemic. But I personally fear that a lot of that is rhetoric that masks an inclination to just move as quickly as we can back to where we were before the advent of Covid and to fail to learn the lessons that we should be learning from the Covid pandemic and the existential threat it poses to humanity. And one instance of that is the comments by the Taoiseach in his speech of his failure to be convinced about the need for a digital tax on the corporations. He needs convincing. And of course this gives the game away about the attitude of the government towards the Apple ruling and their commitment to big corporations who are flagrantly involved in aggressive tax avoidance. tax avoidance for which the rest of society pays. So it's not just an isolated case of trying to defend the particularities of Apple's aggressive tax avoidance because apparently they have important jobs and don't get me wrong they are important jobs in Cork. But the giveaway is that he the Irish government doesn't just want to side with Apple. over that tax dispute ahead of but the way that he has a change of collecting taxes of collecting taxes from Apple that could go into jobs into infrastructure into services to give away that that's not an isolated instance is not being convinced about the digital tax. Now I just do not understand how the Taoiseach can claim that he is supportive of tax reform measures on an international level recognition that these corporations have grown bigger than states. states, that they're enormously profitable, hoovering up vast amounts of the surplus wealth in the world, and not be in favour of imposing a little bit of tax on these in order to fund the services and the infrastructures on which they depend across Europe. I just don't understand it. And it's just another example of how Ireland in particular is subservient at the feet of these enormous multinationals and doesn't recognise the need to move forward to a new normal where these corporations pay their fair share of tax. And why that's important and relevant to the lessons of COVID is because what we have learned is if we do not fund our health services to the level that is capable of dealing with surges of the sort that we see with COVID-19, the entire economy shuts down. That's what the curve, the famous curve is about. It's about the level of healthcare capacity was too low to deal with surges. In the case of Ireland, it was too low even before COVID we were operating at 100% capacity. If we don't address that capacity problem by taxing big and very profitable corporations to fund things like health services and childcare and education and water infrastructure and all of these areas which are deficient in investment, our economy will shut down at the first crisis that it faces as we've seen with COVID. If we don't recognise the need for a fundamental shift away from neoliberalism, in the aftermath of COVID-19, we are heading for another disaster sooner or later. Whether it's COVID or it's the next crisis or it's the next pandemic. And there needs to be a fundamental recognition that even in the July stimulus, it's not just about stimulating the small and medium enterprises, which we have to do to sustain those jobs. But unless we finance massive investment in key public services and infrastructure, we are an accident waiting to happen in this country and across Europe. And I just hope European leaders and our own new Taoiseach recognise the need for the change.
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