Cóir Date: 01.10.2010

The pro-sovereignty organisation, Cóir, has said that comments made by the European Commissioner Olli Rehn show that our low corporation tax rate is under real threat from the European Union - and that threat puts tens of thousands of jobs at risk. Spokesman Brian T.  Hickey added that warnings by opponents of the Lisbon Treaty that a push for harmonised tax rules would follow the treaty's approval had now been proved correct, and that the government should apologise to voters for deliberately misleading them on this issue.

Mr Rehn, who is Commissioner for Economic & Monetary Affairs, told a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels that it was "a fact of life' that Ireland will no longer be a low tax economy over the next ten years 'after what has happened' - referring to the economic and banking crisis. He was responding to a question as to whether Ireland's low rate of corporation tax should be targeted in moves to increase tax revenues in Ireland in order to bring our deficit down to 3% by 2013.

"We were accused of lying when we pointed out that the Lisbon Treaty would be used to attack our low tax rates, but now we're seeing that's exactly what's likely to happen," said Mr Hickey. "Firstly, tax policies will be harmonised, and then the bigger states will push through a harmonisation of rates - with devastating effects for Irish jobs. As things stand even a harmonisation of tax policies will interfere with the ability of the multinational companies based in Ireland to maximise the profits they record in this country, since the EU wishes them to reallocate taxable revenues to the EU country in which they are earned."

"This would greatly diminish the attractiveness of our low corporation tax rate," he continued. "And that means tens of thousands of jobs will go." Mr Hickey added that the immediate response of the American Chamber of Commerce to Mr Rehn's remarks was "worrying".

He said that the much-triumphed veto contained in the Lisbon Treaty would not be enforceable at this point, because the Government was indebted to the EU powers to help with Ireland's current financial crisis. "The Government and other Yes campaigners, knew this could happen," said the Cóir spokesman. "They mislead the people and bullied them into voting Yes, and they should now apologise."

Cóir said that the bigger EU member states such as France and Germany were now driving EU policy, and that, because Ireland had given up her sovereignty and diminished her power in Europe under the Lisbon and Nice treaties, we were powerless to stop policy that would harm our economy.