Bruton: Low corporation tax vital to economic recovery

IRELAND’s low rate of corporation tax has been vital to the country’s economic development “before the EU even came into being,” former taoiseach , John Bruton told a gathering of international business leaders in New York last night.

He assured delegates at an Ireland Day conference in the New York Stock Exchange that Ireland would use its veto to prevent any moves by the EU which would result in an increase of the 12.5% rate.

Mr Bruton said the position taken by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy to force changes of the rate in return for a reduction in the interest rate paid on the EU share of the EU-IMF bailout makes “no sense”.