2016 Budget: Public Services – Massive Profits For Private Companies
Éirígí area representative for Dublin Bay North, Ciarán Heaphey has criticised the Fine Gael-led government for not tackling the issue of Corporation Tax Justice in Budget 2017.
Speaking from Coolock, Ciarán said, ‘It came as no surprise that Noonan used the budget to defend his government’s criminal Corporation Tax regime.
So now we will have at least one more year of domestic and foreign corporations sponging off the state, another year of these corporate parasites benefiting from public services that they refuse to properly pay for.
Private corporations generate vast profits off the backs of the healthy, well-educated workforce that exists in the Twenty-Six Counties. These companies are also more than happy to use motorways, ports, airports and other publicly funded infrastructure to increase their profits.
In 2017 the Twenty-Six County state will spend €24 Billion Euro on Healthcare and Education alone. Tens of billions more will be spend on transport, housing, water infrastructure, communications, policing, social welfare and other expenditure that private corporations generate profits from.
Despite the fact that the government is actually borrowing money to fund these services, they still refuse to make the private corporations pay anything beyond a token rate of corporation tax. In 2017 it is very likely that all of the Irish and foreign corporations together will pay less than €5 billion in Corporation Tax on profits that will reach into the tens of billions.
Between now and budget 2018 we in Éirígí and many others will continue to build pressure for Corporation Tax Justice.’