Foreign direct investment is not the only show in town

We shouldn’t make the mistake of confusing the issue over whether Apple received illegal state aid and the broader issue of Ireland’s over-reliance on a policy of attracting foreign direct investment with a low rate of corporation tax.

We have been running the foreign direct investment policy for the best part of a lifetime. Initially conceived as a way to lift us out of economic underperformance, it has since become a shibboleth.

Questioning multinationals here is seen as some form of economic blasphemy. Decades of media and political coverage has conditioned the population to think that foreign direct investment is the only game in town. We now need to ask whether we need a new approach.