Noonan: Battle to defend investment not over

As Ireland announced it was happy with the new tax strategy aimed at preventing countries privileging multinationals, Finance Minister Michael Noonan warned that the battle to protect Ireland’s foreign direct investment was not yet over.

Having ended the double Irish and “stateless companies” strategies and signing up to country-by-country reporting in the coming budget, Mr Noonan said the OECD’s plan will play to Ireland’s advantage.

Pascal Amans, the chief architect of the OECD base erosion and profit-shifting (BEPS) paper, said it would turn the focus to the country’s low tax rate giving the country an advantage now that zero-tax havens are expected to come to an end.