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ALAN SHATTER IS facing a tough internal battle to ensure he can even be in the race to retain his Dáil seat at the next election.
The former justice minister has already declared his intention to run for re-election, but securing enough support from party members in Dublin Rathdown may prove problematic.
The constituency, formerly known as Dublin South, has been reduced from five seats to three and will be hotly-contested by all parties with as many as five sitting TDs and one senator going for the three seats. Unsurprisingly, it’s been labelled the ‘constituency of death’.
Despite this it’s considered one of the few in the country where Fine Gael can take two seats at the next election having taken three four years ago.
The party has scheduled a selection convention for 2 October with nomination papers distributed in the last week. Party headquarters is also currently conducting private polling in the constituency to determine candidate strategy.
At least two Fine Gael candidates will run and this is considered by many to be the optimum ticket. However, picking those candidates may prove the most interesting battle with at least four names in the running.
Olivia Mitchell, who has represented the area as a TD since 1997, has confirmed to TheJournal.ie this week that she intends to run again despite speculation to the contrary.
She is almost certain to win the overwhelming backing of party members at convention.
But Shatter‘s selection is far from certain with constituency sources claiming he may not have sufficient support among the members.
“This time last year everyone assumed he would retire so some people are worried that it’s him trying to get redemption,” said one.
The constituency redraw has reduced the number of Fine Gael members from over 400 to around 230 with some of Shatter’s supporters now moved into Dublin South-West.
Historically, Shatter has not always performed strongly at selection conventions despite having been a TD for the area since 1981 with the exception of five years out of the Dáil between 2002 and 2007.
The veteran Fine Gael TD has sought to increase his profile both nationally – with poetry readings and an appearance on ‘The Restaurant’ – and in the constituency since losing his cabinet post in a blaze of controversy last year.
He made a passionate speech on abortion and divorce to local members in February and very publicly came out in support of the family of Ibrahim Halawa. The father of the jailed teenager is imam of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh.
He also recently circulated a leaflet that was notably devoid of the level of Fine Gael branding that others TDs have:
Shatter’s strongest opponent for the Fine Gael nomination appears to be the two-term Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county councillor Neale Richmond.
The Ballinteer-based councillor, who got married this summer, has been quietly building up support and a national media profile in recent months. Richmond is expected to declare his intention to contest the convention shortly.
He is also a close ally of Mitchell’s having previously worked as her campaign manager and parliamentary assistant.
Another councillor who is hoping to be on the ticket is Josepha Madigan who was elected for the first time last year and declared her intentions on Facebook this week.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, the family law practitioner said she had been building up support and momentum since she was elected last year.
However, Madigan admitted there is a lot of uncertainty about who party members will nominate, saying:
I think there are a lot of imponderables in our constituency. There are two incumbent TDs, both with very high profiles. The other two contenders, Neale and I, have considerably less of a profile but we both have a lot to offer. It’s up to the members, this is the reality of it.
Another potential contender is Barry Saul, a Stillorgan-based councillor, who was first elected in 2009. However, he told us this week he will not be putting his name forward if the two sitting TDs follow through on their intentions to run again.
“It’s one of the constituencies in the country where Fine Gael has a very strong chance of getting two seats out of three. In fact it’s probably the only constituency where Fine Gael can do this, but I think that would require both sitting TDs running,” he said.
He does not believe the controversies surrounding Shatter will impact the former minister or Fine Gael’s hopes of winning two seats. Saul added:
“He has gone through the mill with a little bit of controversy but I think people will have serious choices to make and it might not necessarily about personalities, but about whether you want a Sinn Féin-led government or a Fine Gael-led government. I think Alan has strong support.”
Shatter was out of the country this week and did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Outside of Fine Gael many observers expect that independent TD Shane Ross will easily retain his seat.
He topped the poll in 2011 and is hoping that his new Independent Alliance project will help return him to the Dáil.
Labour party minister Alex White is considered to be in big trouble and would upset the odds if he retained his seat.
Fianna Fáil hopes that senator Mary White can help the party regain a foothold in a constituency represented by the late Seamus Brennan for over 25 years.
Sinn Féin is running Dundrum-based councillor Sorcha Nic Cormaic, while Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin is hoping to regain a seat the party lost in 2011 when Eamon Ryan (now running in Dublin Bay South) was dumped by voters. People Before Profit is running Nicola Curry.
Finally, the intentions of ex-Fine Gael TD Peter Mathews, who was a late and ultimately ill-fated addition to the FG ticket four years ago, are unclear although he has previously said he will run.
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Our political elite couldn’t lie straight in bed.
Apple, anyone?
@Trevor Hayden: I think its rather funny that you think our politicans could be described as “elite”.
@Trevor Hayden: Very well put.
@John Ryan: That’s how they see themselves.
@John Ryan:
They have elite salarys
@John Ryan: Their pensions and Salaries could be described as Elite their intellect on the other hand…..
Of course the tax haven is not gonna admit to being a tax haven.
LOL!
And NAMA is ‘doing a fantastic job’
Chemical Pascal.
@Jack McGready: Tax loop holes for the wealthy. none for the PAYE workers. FG/FF gravytrain.
@Jack McGready: The government should now move to apply the 12.5% rate on everything that flows through Ireland, not just Irish sales. To eliminate this talk once and for all.
The multinationals would still prefer it to paying 30% in France but we would be Norway rich!
@Irish “Design”: good idea as long as the “new tax riches “are used to reduce the burden on current tax payers
@Sean Conway:
Why crib? Corporations & multinationals dont have the vote.
Just vote to give citizens living overseas the vote and then we’ll sort out the individuals’ tax woes.
We need a reversal of VAT/Corporate Tax, ie: 22% corporate tax & 12.5% VAT.
How about a new Political Party:
-The Tax Justice Party
-cloud funded
-Tax Policy: Corporate Tax, Individual Tax & VAT set annually at the average rates of the EZ
-That all Irish Citizens are permitted to vote (Stop selling Citizenship to all not born in the island of Ireland & phase out existing citizenship for those
living abroad who were not born in the island of Ireland (Bord Failte using
easy citizenship to Americans who have an Irish ancestor is absurd and
devalues genuine citizenship with full citizen rights including the right to vote)
-Budget health , education & welfare at the EZ average
Let’s face it , if we are genuine about being wanting to be Europeans then what’s wrong with a political/economic policy which aims at the EZ average.?
Perhaps we dont have the self confidence to compete with our EZ peers on a level playing field. It would seem that we prefer to be smartassed as opposed to being smart?
@Sean Conway: It isn’t wealthy individuals that are not paying tax. If you work for Apple here and earn, say, €100,000 the state will quite happily take as much of that as it can get, far more in fact than the UK or most European nations. It’s corporate profits that are the issue in this.
Wow, if Paschal Donohoe and the Dept of Finance say that Ireland isn’t a tax haven, then it must be true. Because as we all know, they are great at explaining anything away with their mumbo jumbo management speak. What a douche.
@Ron O’Keefe:
I’m becoming more and more convinced that Pascal is a programmed humanoid.
Either that or he just loves taking the pith out of the public.
@Jack McGready: He’s an absolute embarrassment. They couldn’t run a newsagent, let alone a country.
@Wez Moore: If they ran a newsagents they would be short on papers.
Setting a minimum tax liability for the multinationals of a paltry 6%, less than HALF of the normal rate, would bring in billions extra and would solve our housing national emergency in the medium term.
@The Risen: Its not that simple. The rate is irrelevant. What’s relevant is what are you applying that rate to. Most multinationals, don’t have a defined revenue stream in Ireland. They bill other entities of the same company in other EU countries for their products or services. Basically they set the price and hence define the revenue and profit for the selling entity. It’s known as transfer pricing. This allows a multinational to increase profits in low tax countries like Ireland. The internal pricing is agreed with the Irish Revenue. And it tends to be a percentage of cost. so they more you pump into the Irish economy the less tax you pay. Its very clever from an Irish point of view.
@CrabaRev: to clarify: so the more you pump into the Irish economy you pay less tax globally, but you pay more tax in Ireland.
Still very clever form an Irish point of view.
@CrabaRev: That’s how Starbucks list Switzerland as the world’s biggest coffee producer. It’s just white collar theft.
There are just two rules for creating a successful tax haven:
1. Don’t tell them everything you know.
2. [Redacted]
Home of the Filthy Rich Tax Haven Emerald Ireland wins Hands Down !
@Johnny Mason: Hah, Pathcal and his somantics.
Good man paschal,keep telling fairytales.
The corporates don’t pay the taxes, their employees do however. We’ve one of lowest entry point to the higher tax band in europe at 33,800. The UK is £46k sterling before 40% kicks in.
@Joshua Walsh: Not to mention that many things which are free at point of use in the UK (GPs, hospitals, university admission and books, the list is endless) are charged for here so that what you are left with doesn’t go as far. Then there is the higher VAT rates, VRT on cars, higher insurance costs…
“Ireland is the number one shifting destination”
Can’t argue with that.
Its the dept of finance job to protect its hidden tax haven status, GDP growing by 26% in 2015 thanks to apple. Wasting taxpayer funds fighting the European commission to protect one multinational knowing that Ireland can’t win only delaying and giving apple cover.
Our labour market is distorted thanks to our tax haven status creating manufacturing jobs in china while we pay more to Europe because our GDP on paper is higher.
Irish people can’t afford homes because that’s another market that completely distorted even the mafia cleans its money on our shores. we allow multinationals to steal other European countries taxes and profit little ourselves.
We have the best paid politicians on this planet who rule without ever worrying about a conflict of interest because they are all at it. Just like the guards and penalty points, no politician will every face justice because we would need to jail they lot.
@leartius: But leartius, don’t you realise some people on here know someone who know someone who works for Intel or Google or Ebay or PayPal or Apple? Their jobs are far more important than the law, justice, morality, fairness, or any of that oul nonsense!
Just from a pragmatic perspective, if Ireland is the base of global operations and they move all non-US profits to Ireland, then to the US via the Caribbean, as long as they are paying EU tax compliant corporation tax rates on those profits, then we are not a tax haven. If we don’t apply those rates through either independent deals to hide or evade those, it is corruption, not systemic tax evasion. We are facilitating lapses in the home countries tax systems, especially the US, but not a tax haven.
@Gulliver Foyle: but if the profits are booked in Ireland and never repatriated to US or anywhere else for that matter and these global corporations are paying negligible amounts of tax then clearly that makes Ireland a tax haven, regardless of the dictionary definition of that term.
The state of this comment section… Zero understanding of global taxation and no interest in trying to understand it. They just wanna sound off and say something populist. Thejournal.ie have linked the research paper at the top. I encourage folks to read it and reflect on why Ireland topped the global list, the nature of the balance sheet items on Irish entities relative to employee numbers and how as a services economy connecting the US to the EU, the results become inevitable. Especially considering the size of the companies relative to the domestic population… Sorry, I meant, that Pascal fella, some fool eh…
@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: You cant expect the anti everything crowd to spend their time actually informing themselves of the facts about taxation, what would they complain about in the comments section if they couldn’t ignorantly talk about apples 13 billion?
@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: so what your saying is people have it all wrong and that we should encourage the little or no paying of tax by multinationals because we don’t understand the great global taxation plan……ok maybe explain that to the Irish businesses who employ people and who don’t get those sweet heart deals, seems to me if we gonna give it to one why not all companies. Imagine the help this would give struggling Irish businesses who are paying and playing by the rules…..funny that
@Ian McNally: must be great to think you know more than the rest…..and despite what you may have gotten about people’s understanding of this taxation issue, people can see that yes it’s helping employee people and that brings in taxes another way, but also makes a mockery of the likes of the government and IDA etc telling us these companies are here for the great workforce and the rest when it’s only a small percentage of the reason and as I pointed out since we feel so generous giving these deals to multinationals, why not just give it to Irish companies who won’t upsticks and leave when something better comes along……just a thought of a simple lad you think doesn’t understand the global taxation plans
@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: it’s good for Ireland in that we get to keep a very small fraction of the forgone tax (200bn annually in the EU) and that helps our economy but we are a global pariah for doing so. Let me put it to you this way. If somebody showed up and said let me sell hot dogs from your front garden and I’ll give you 2% of my takings. Steady income rolling in for us but obvious downsides for all the neighbours. Now do you get it Ciaran with all the fadas? Simple when someone explains it to you really. For tonight’s homework I want you to do the 2 times tables and read page 4 from Ann and Barry.
@Thomas Michael Newell: and yet you still refuse to accept that we arent by any definitionof the term a tax haven, the double irish issue which is what you are refferring is also now no longer possible and will be completely gone by 2021, the narative that we are the worst culprit of this is also incorrect the netherlands dutch sandwich example is far worse, also France who constantly like to hit us as they have a published rate double ours but in reality it is about the same as ours once all their loopholes come into effect, so yes i do believe you dont know anything about this subject. And finally if all the above is true, which it is, then your reasoning that they are primarily here for the tax is completely incorrect.
@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: Keep putting those fadas in, Fallon. Makes you feel more Irish than other people does it? Superior? Not populist?
Nearly 100 years of FFG.. We deserve em..
It’s a disgusting practice the department of revenue do the VRT tax it’s an illegal tax they do what they went and allow company’s pay little tax
It’s a bloody joke the sooner the better they sit in front of the EEC and face vast fines for what they are doing
@laurence o neill: VRT is a disgrace, but it’s not unique to Eire. Netherlands, Luxembourg too AFAIK also have the equivalent. The state attitude is only rich ( that is people who work) people run cars, so they can afford it. Can’t be having (little) people not paying tax now, sure we’d be a tax haven then!
Without these multi national companies a huge percentage of the population would be unemployed .
@Jack Goff: We would be back in Ireland post 1990 or probably a lot worse with our debt levels…..basically broke and every Tom Dick and Harry looking for work in other countries, but these countries are fast pulling up the draw bridges to new migrants, so it would be very interested to see what would happen to our unemployed masses if they did pull out…..
@Jack Goff: and the complete over reliance on them means at the drop of a hat they can leave and we are screwed……maybe give these deals to some Irish companies who actually are here cos they want to be not cos we are effectively bribe and begging them
@Jack Goff: Same argument many companies have made to explain why they didn’t pay their employer’s PRSI contributions, if I did I’d have had to close down. Apple et al employ precisely the minimum number they need here, many of whom by the way are US citizens who have moved over, arguably taking a job from an Irish person. Tax fraud is tax fraud, if we ignore morality then ‘but the slaves are keeping the economy going’. If employment is based on robbing our EU partners and the USA of their rightful taxes we should stop doing that and accept the job losses. It’s called not being a banana republic.
Paul Krugman was right this is Lepreachaun economics accounts for 26% growth rate in 2016, meanwhile the EU federalists are biding their time until post brexit , and they come after our 12% corporation rate. They are keeping their powder dry for the moment , because they are using us as a stick to beat the nasty Brits with for the time being, when that is done all bets are off, if it walks like a duck and if it quacks like a duck it`s usually a duck I find
@Patrick James Walsh: Just a matter of time and it won’t be just the EU, President Trump’s USA and Canada and the rest of the OECD want their due. I hope they get it as well. Time to stop the theft.
The dept of finance can dismiss it all they want. Their views on the matter hold very little credence to everybody else.
Sure it’s not a tax haven it’s just a low-tax jurisdiction to route your profits through to avoid paying higher taxes elsewhere.
I don’t particularly care if we’re a tax haven or not. We need jobs, skilled and well paid ones. And we should use every weapon in our arsenal to beat our EU partners into submission at every given opportunity.
@mike scott: Ah the true voice of I’m all right jack. Mixed with the usual Irish nationalist delusion that a tiny state can beat a massive entity like the EU. Cop yourself on.
We don’t do honesty very well, we are like a rogue state
What happened to several large corporations all registered in single houses in Holland. Still going on ?
Of course is the biggest tax haven for multinational corporations. Ask Apple !!!
It’s not for people who is living and working here in Ireland.
Ireland has full tax autonomy, given by the EU if Lisbon mk 2 was passed. The government can set any tax rate they like if it means attracting multi-national companies to set up in Ireland. Whether you think that is right or wrong just remember it has the EU’s blessing.
@John Hagin Meade: If you had followed any of this you would know that the EU is not complaining about the 12.5% rate. It is complaining that Apple et al are not even paying 1%.
“We’re phasing out” – not “We’ve completely phased out”
“We’ve made many of the changes requied” – not “We’ve made all the changes required”
Do we believe the finance minister or real economists at the University of California @ Berkley along with the Danes ?
Off topic, post Brexit is our EU contribution based on GDP or GNI ? – hope it’s the latter.
In shocking developing news, the department of taxation deny any wrongdoing in the department of taxation…
“fails to provide any definition for a tax haven”!
Maybe they assumed that people already knew. Try Googling it.
It is a tax haven. Study after study says it is. Of course our own central bank and politicians are going to reject this every time. Its not in our interest to be seen as such, but the fact is we are and we are seen as this.
If companies are setting up based on your tax model, then you’re a tax haven.
I will say that Ireland does offer more than just being a tax haven, like say, our neighbours Isle of Man, the difference is we do have other benefits, well educated workforce, robust company laws, ease to set up, etc… but these cannot still take away the fact that we are a tax haven. The US is also a tax haven, if you look at certain states like Delaware
Small and medium companies here pay 12.5%. Apple, Google, EBay and the rest don’t even pay 1%, FG need to rethink their attitude to this and own up. It’s at odds with their law and order policy, with fairness and with being a good EU member.
Ah,so that’s why we are doing business with China,,the beef deal and big Bio Pharma company proposed for Dundalk, once you mix with China,its bye bye small fry
My summation of Ireland’s Euro Politechnocrats…
Overweight and sweaty, Mr. Parsons swallows the Party lines whole. In addition to having to endure him as a neighbor, Winston has to work with the man. His unblinking acceptance of the Doctrine makes Winston think Parsons will never be vaporized. But he is surprised in the end to find him at the Ministry of Love, no poorer for having been denounced by his horrible children.
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