Lawyers earn € 8m in battle over € 13bn ‘ unpaid Apple taxes’ LAWYERS pocketed € 8million in fees from the Government to stop us collecting € 13billion in unpaid Apple taxes.
‘ Insane’ Govt didn’t collect what was owed from firm
The battle to hand back money y owed to the public involves es the State appealing an EU Commissioner’ s Ruling the firm must pay us levies they avoided for years.
The Government viewed it as a bad precedent being set for foreign investment operating here if they see they are going to get walloped with back taxes.
It won an initial appeal of the decision last July and is hell- bent on giving the money back to Apple.
The cash is resting in a special escrow bank account for the time being while the case continues.
But People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett believes it is “insane” that we don’t collect what’s due. He told the Irish Mirror the billions could be used to fund vital investment in health, education and housing.
However, no matter who wins the case, the big winners will be th the legal eagles who will ke keep charging their fees as lo long as it runs.
Figures obtain ed by the Irish Mirror reveal the running total for legal costs is just shy of € 8million. The tab has been running since 2016 and legal costs of € 7,101,127 have been paid to the end of September 2020.
Other fees included another € 588,037 for expert witnesses and €105,983 for translation services.
Mr Boyd Barrett believes the money being “wasted” on this legal case is
VIEW Richard Boyd Barrett “shocking ” and we shouldn’t be fighting the case in the first place.
He said :“It’ s absolute insanity that the Government is forking out millions of euro to prevent us, the people, getting the € 13billion from Apple that we are entitled to.
“Money is desperately needed to fund the vital investments required in housing, education and health.
“I think the Government should withdraw their support for Apple in these legal proceedings.
“Apple’s case would be significantly weakened without the visible support of a national government.
“Apple is an obscene ly wealthy company and it does well out of Ireland. It makes staggering profits here and the idea they would leave if they don’t have to pay their fair share, just their fair share, is nonsensical.”
OUR hearts must go out to the survivors of Mother and Baby Homes on this historic day.
We will never know how many babies and y oung chi l dren di ed , but t he esti mated figure of 9,000 – one in six that were born in the institutions – is truly shocking.
The scandal joins the litany of shameful episodes in our histor y where women and chi l dren have s o of t en b e en t re at ed as second- class citizens by their own.
From the tyranny at State- run industrial schools, to the vile abuse of children by priests and nuns and the scandalous denial of so many women’s rights, it has been embarrassing.
But there is no easy scapegoat for this one, we can’t just blame the Church and State.
There may have only been 18 of the homes included in the remit of today’s report, however, the truth is it could have been widened to look at what happened in almost 200 such facilities.
This means there was essentially one in every town and community in Ireland.
Nobody can pretend they didn’t know what was going on, it was on our doorsteps.
And few can deflect by saying it was “back in the bad old days” because it was still going on up to as recently as 1998.
So today is a day for the rest of us to hang our heads in shame as we offer our support to the tens of thousands for whom this report will bring back such painful memories.