Gross hypocrisy beneath Orkambi ‘rip-off’ outrage
THREE years ago on these pages I wrote about a Russian oligarch worth €8.8bn who owned a major company in Ireland but managed to pay just €1,952 in corporation tax over the previous five years. Neither Oleg Deripaska’s name nor his company, Aughinish Alumina in Limerick, featured in any Dáil debate despite the fact that his company was aided by the Irish taxpayer through IDA grants and tax breaks to the tune of €15m.
No Government minister or State representative dared criticise Mr Derispaska or indeed any other major corporation who had received massive grants from the Irish taxpayer and then paid little tax.
By the way, the EU claims that we gave illegal tax breaks to the same company.
In the Aughinish Alumina plant, the argument is that 450 people are employed in Askeaton and we should do everything to protect their livelihoods. This is the same argument that allows us to bend the knee to Apple and make a laughing stock of ourselves as we clamber to throw back the €13bn in tax the EU say we are due from the world’s most profitable corporation. But this week, the Taoiseach, the State agencies and their spokespeople did finally decide to face up to one of the big multinational corporations.
Their target was not one of the companies mentioned above or the many multinationals who receive massive grants from the Irish taxpayer and in turn pay a laughable amount of tax of their profits – but a company that has developed – without a cent of support from the Irish Government – a new lifesaving drug for cystic fibrosis.
Vertex, the pharmaceutical company that developed Orkambi, was accused in the Dáil by the Taoiseach of ‘ripping off the Irish taxpayer’ while another Government minister labelled them ‘outrageous and criminal’. The State agency dealing with Vertex has publicly ridiculed them and accused them of telling bare-faced lies.
Vertex is now being portrayed by all and sundry as the ‘greedy underbelly of capitalism’. That’s as may be – but my God, they aren’t the first or the worst!
By the way, these are phrases never used by any Government figure when the casino banks immiserated this country eight years ago. Instead, they sought advice from celebrity economists who told them to ‘guarantee’ the banks, and condemned generations of Irish people to unending austerity, especially in the health sector.
So why has the Government and its mouthpieces suddenly found its cojones when it comes to multinationals? They held back their abuse and opprobrium when it came to countless ‘rip-off corporations’ because they were concerned about the livelihoods of the Irish workers. What about the lives of cystic fibrosis sufferers dependent on companies like Vertex to develop life-saving drugs? Indeed Vertex have developed the only two new CF drugs to get to market in the last 30 years.
Yes, we should fight them on price. But is it really a smart negotiating tactic to call them names when they are the only company in the world producing a drug for an illness that has its highest prevalence in Ireland?
The Government didn’t give questionable grants or tax breaks to Vertex. They were too busy wining and dining Russian oligarchs and rolling out the red carpet for American vulture funds and their rogue traders. The only glimpse of light in this is the actions of cystic fibrosis sufferers and their families who gathered outside the Dáil last Wednesday at risk to their own health. Heroes all.
THE decision by Anton Savage to part company with Today FM is a big loss for Irish broadcasting. His programme with its mixture of quizzes, lifestyle dilemmas and stories was a welcome alternative for many to the daily unending mix of politicians and pundits. And he has the great gift of not taking himself too seriously. That being said, Anton is still young, hugely energetic and capable – he will find a new spot on the dial very soon I hope.
I AM genuinely impressed by the number of musical, theatrical and literary endeavours inspired by the stories of the children killed in 1916. This week another great production takes to the roads when Niamh Gleeson’s The Games They Played, by the students of Marino College, visits Tourmakeady in Mayo. Meanwhile, Glasnevin Trust has announced a project to build a memorial in the St Paul’s part of the cemetery where most of the children and civilians are buried.