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Donagh Brennan - Wed May 22, 2013 18:13 So the US Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has declared that Ireland is a tax haven and Apple executives giving testimony to the committee have said that the Irish government gave them a special 2% rate. Rate in this context is irrelevant however, as the mechanism ensures that what Apple declares as taxable income is completely up to them. As many reports have suggested, Apple could pay as little as 0.05% on income earned and passed through Ireland, and the revenue appears to be sales tax on Apple products bought in Ireland. In addition they have also said that their Irish companies are not registered for tax anywhere, so that none of the $30 bn global income earned in the last number of years was taxed.The Irish government denies that it has provided special tax treatment to Apple, and that it is not a tax haven. This is the surest sign that it is one, according to Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK.
If you haven't already you could do worse than get one of the remaining handful of copies of the first issue of Irish Left Review, which includes a good interview with Ricard Murphy about the Irish system. There is also a long article about Ireland and corporation tax which deals this in a fair amount of detail.
However, with all the coverage I am drawn back to a post by Conor McCabe from July 2010 written around the time he was working on the chapter on the cattle industry in Sins of the Father. (Good news, the 2nd edition of Sins of the Father, with a new chapter on more recent developments will be published towards the end of 2013).
Irish Left Review - Wed May 22, 2013 13:32 The book Understanding European Movements, edited by Cristina Flesher Fominaya and Laurence Cox, has just been published and might be of interest to readers.
Cristina Flesher Fominaya and Laurence Cox, eds. (2013) Understanding European Movements: New Social Movements, Global Justice Struggles, Anti-Austerity Protest. London: Routledge (Advances in Sociology series).
304 pp. hardback, ISBN 978-0-415-63879-1, release date 21 May 2013.
List price $143 / £80; discount $114.40 / £64 (order via www.routledge.com using discount code ERJ67*).
A paperback edition will come out in due course but in the meantime we are encouraging people to try ordering this through university and public libraries.
Across Europe, social movements are resisting the onslaught of austerity politics and challenging the legitimacy of the neoliberal economic model. In Ireland, commentary from both sides often revolves around the relationship between Irish movements and those elsewhere in Europe. At the same time, much of this analysis is flimsy, restricted to English-language information and anecdotal accounts. Understanding European movements represents a collaborative project by participants in the Council for European Studies? social movements research network. Its 15 chapters include authors based in 11 countries whose analyses are all grounded in ethnographic and historical research on these movements ? in Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Spain and the UK as well as transnational relationships ? and in keeping with the traditions of European movement research many are active, critical participants in the movements they analyse and the book is written for movement activists as well as researchers. The book offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary perspective on the key European social movements in the past forty years and sets present-day struggles in their longer-term national, historical and political contexts.
Irish Left Review - Tue May 21, 2013 13:56 Only a few days left but seats still available. The club needs this fundraiser to be a success, so that we can keep the wolf (pack) from our door. If you want to reserve tickets (?10 each) Please contact us at this email address or the club one at the end of the message.
As part of this fundraising drive we have a limited edition Bobby Ballagh print for sale at ?400. The print, which is framed, is one of a hundred print lot and depicts James Larkin. It can be viewed in Connolly Books, 43 East Essex St, D.2.
Venue: The New Theatre , 43 East Essex Street, Dublin 2
Date: Sat 25th May 2013
2pm - Irish Premiere Dear Mr Ken Loach (30 mins) a film by Nicola di Lecce and Rossella Lamina.
Irish Left Review - Tue May 21, 2013 13:46 Saturday 25 May 2pm Liberty Hall No2CrokePark2 Public Rally The trade union movement emphatically voted nearly 2-to-1 against CrokePark2. Grassroots members across several trade unions are coming together this Saturday to host a public rally at 2pm in Liberty Hall entitled 'No2CrokePark2 - No2Austerity' to remind the government and others of that vote and that "No Means No!". All are welcome. Please share for your friends.
Donagh Brennan - Mon May 20, 2013 23:41 In my long article in the first issue of Irish Left Review on Ireland?s corporate tax regime I made the point that Ireland in effect sells its abilities to make tax laws to profit hungry MNCs, in much the same way as it sells to the rights to our natural resources to large oil companies. That is, whatever economic benefit there is, and its small, goes to the ?agents? who negotiate the deal, with very little, if any, benefit appearing in the economy.
Still, with all the attention being on Google for a while now, there was one fact about the Irish government?s arrangements with the search engine company that I had missed.
Recently these arrangements, known as the Double Irish with the Dutch Sandwich have been given a lot of attention and are often explained. For example, see this New York Times info graphic. However, while listening to Jim Stewart?s interview on Morning Ireland last Friday in a conversation about Google?s ?grilling? before the UK?s Public Accounts Committee on taxation, I found out that the ?Dutch Sandwich? is no longer used, and instead Google?s earnings from its EMEA market goes from Google Ireland to Google Ireland Holdings, which is registered in a solicitor?s office at 70 Sir John Rogerson?s Quay and also in Bermuda. So, by passing these to the Bermuda registered company, the earnings go straight to Bermuda. Google Ireland Holdings has no employees and is ?owned? by Google Bermuda which also has no employees. Both are unlimited companies, so under Irish law, they do not have to publish accounts.
Irish Left Review - Mon May 20, 2013 10:50 Ireland?s leading magazine for progressive news, views and solutions ? available in Easons stores and selected newsagents across the country ? 48 pages for just ?2/£1.50 Features The G8 comes to town:Kevin Squires looks at the impact the 39th G8 summit will have. Learning Division: Fifteen years ago progressives recognised the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) as a positive development. However, fears that its structures would allow for communal politics to be institutionalised have been realised particularly in the provision of education, writes Justin O?Hagan. Mobilising a generation: Young Irish people facing sharply limited opportunities at home or emigration are beginning to mobilise, reports Dara McHugh. Precious few heroes: With his politically charged songs Dick Gaughan has inspired generations of Left activists, Kevin Brannigan caught up with the veteran Scottish folk singer during his spring tour of Ireland No turning back from here: The Venezuelan revolution has dramatically changed not only the politics of Latin America also but the globe, reports Paul Dillon. The tyranny of the credit rating agencies: Democratic accountability is being eroded by credit rating capitalism, writes Srinivas Raghavendra Of live dogs and dead lions: Following the death of Hugo Chávez, Richard McAleavey assesses the Irish media?s representation of the ormer Venezuelan President. Calling the bigots bluff: Do anti-choicers want follow through the with the logic of their argument and imprison women, asks Katie Garrett.
Raymond Deane - Fri May 17, 2013 17:46 This was originally published on Raymond Deane's blog, the Deanery on the 16th of May.
As everyone knows by now, The Gatekeepers is a 2012 Academy award-nominated documentary film made by the Israeli director Dror Moreh. Moreh succeeded in interviewing the last six heads of Israel?s General Security Services, better known by its Hebrew acronym Shin Bet. These gentlemen display considerable frankness about the nature of their past activities, their belated advocacy of a two-state solution to the Palestine issue and their negative views of successive Israeli governments.
It?s not my purpose here to write another review of this much talked-about but surprisingly uncontroversial film. Interesting articles, both of which discuss it in conjunction with the Israeli/Palestinian film 5 Broken Cameras, may be read here and here. Instead, I wish to reflect on some worrisome aspects of the film?s framing and reception in public discourse, and to suggest that its propagandistic effect is dependent on such framing.
Communist Party of Ireland - Fri May 17, 2013 17:14 The May issue of Socialist Voice is out now. It can also be view online (pdf) or below. Contents:
Susan DuMars - Thu May 16, 2013 13:32 A story by Susan Millar DuMars
Luke swallowed the bird on a cold, clear December night ? trees of bone, the river in a silver-black sulk. He?d waved off a taxi, needing the air after all those back-slapping pints. Crossing the bridge toward the cathedral, he thought how the dome at night was a great green helmet; the windows, unreadable eyes. He remembered funerals, several, in the past year. Muttering responses to prayers, following the coffin out slow and stiff-legged. Luke crossed himself without knowing he did it. As his hand fell it brushed the old stone banister of the bridge and he thought for a moment of the river beneath him, God and Death in front of him. Himself suspended in a comfortable middle age. How lucky. How very lucky.
Though even as he plumped and pinked with a sense of good fortune, another voice inside him contradicted. ?Earned! Surely, earned.? He lifted his other arm and gazed at what he clutched. The book. His book. Bringer of Light: The Life and Poems of Malachy Flynn. Launched into the world this evening in a modest, yet satisfying, ceremony.
The applause had been warm and lasting. Loyola had beamed. Afterward, in the pub, many pints of Erdinger were bought him. Loyola had drunk half an orange juice and had driven herself home to prepare a late supper. He?d promised to be home before the meat turned tough.
Irish Left Review - Wed May 15, 2013 13:53 GUE/NGL MEPs will take part in two days of debates and talks at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin as part of the Group's study days in Ireland.
At 3pm this afternoon GUE/NGL MEP Mikael Gustafsson, Chair of the European Parliament's Women's Rights and Gender Equality committee will moderate a seminar on 'Abortion Rights in Ireland', with guest contributions from Sinéad Redmond (Abortion Rights Campaign), Jacqueline Healy (National Women's Council), and Niall Behan (Irish Family Planning Association). There will also be a political tour of Dublin and a talk and Q&A on the 1913 lockout by historian Donal Fallon, chaired by GUE/NGL MEP Inês Zuber.
On Thursday at 9am GUE/NGL MEP Paul Murphy will chair discussions on 'Austerity and the Fightback' with guest speakers Jimmy Kelly (UNITE Regional Secretary), Rita Fagan (Spectacle of Defiance), Peadar Toibín TD (Save Navan Hospital Campaign), Matthew Waine (Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes), and Michael McCabe (Campaign for Independent Living). |
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