Apple's Cork announcement: Clear up fog around the ‘double Irish’

EVER since Apple began manufacturing in Cork exactly 35 years ago this month, it has been the undisputed jewel in the crown of Ireland’s burgeoning tech sector.

Known as the world’s most profitable company and also for having its most valuable brand, it directly employs 5,000 employees in Cork and supports nearly 18,000 people in a swathe of related industries up and down the country.

With the notable exception of the embarrassing double-Irish tax arrangement — a mechanism whereby Apple reduces tax liabilities by channelling 60% of profits through three businesses based in this country — the story of Apple’s time in Cork has been one of unmitigated success.

And the good news has been further enhanced by yesterday’s announcement that the company’s plant at what Apple people like to call the “campus” at Hollyhill is to be expanded so as to make room for 1,000 more employees by 2017.

By any yardstick this is indeed good news, a welcome fillip in the context of Ireland’s improving economy even if the long hoped-for trickle-down effect has yet to be felt by large sections of society. Effectively, it will help keep many young people in the country who might otherwise have to seek work in Australia or Canada.

Significantly, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, the man who succeeded its founder — the legendary Steve Jobs — was in Ireland for the announcement to receive the gold medal of honorary patronage from Trinity College Dublin’s University Philosophical Society.

By mid-2017, Cork will have over 6,000 Apple employees. Already the largest private employer in the city, the company embraces 80 different nationalities, a diversity which, according to Mr Cook, makes the Hollyhill operation one of the most internationally representative operations on the planet from a religious, racial or cultural viewpoint.

Illustrating the multi-faceted face of Apple, Mr Cook, in response to a question from a student yesterday, talked openly about coming out as a gay man. This is another milestone in a rapidly changing and maturing Ireland at a time when scores of Irish people are literally queuing up to marry their partners of the same sex.

Having come under global pressure, the Irish Government has promised to close the “double Irish”, a highly advantageous, though perfectly legal albeit controversial corporate structure which reportedly also applies to other multinationals such as Google and Facebook.

US President Barack Obama has made it clear he believes the present global corporation tax system is not fit for purpose. And an EU edict on the future of this extraordinarily generous arrangement which, like it or not, amounts to a blatant form of tax avoidance is expected soon. However, Mr Cook’s assurance that the Cork project will not be affected by the outcome is very welcome. From both a national and international standpoint, the sooner the fog surrounding the “double Irish” is cleared up once and for all the better. At least people will then get a more accurate picture of the relationship between multinationals and Ireland.