Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

With that thought in mind - that the organisation is not about harmonisation and creating the same system right across the European Union - and bearing in mind that one of the cornerstones of the Irish economy has been our 12.5% corporation tax rate, about which there has been a great deal of confusion, whether deliberate of unintentional, some countries are currently coming up with regimes which would tend to undercut the 12.5% rate for certain activities. For instance, in the case of our closest neighbour, Britain, I heard the Prime Minister, Mr. Cameron, talk recently about the introduction of a new tax rate, with perhaps a patent box regime of 10%, or, in some cases, perhaps a zero rate in the area of innovation and development. These are the areas in which intellectual copyright is very prominent. What would be the view of the OECD on the introduction of such regimes?