Amid the turmoil of the last few years, the multinational sector has been a huge support, motoring through the Covid shutdowns and — with one or two bumps — the cost-of-living crisis. Corporation tax payments from just under €11 billion in 2019 to almost €23 billion last year. Things would have been much tighter for the exchequer without this boost.
Over the past decade, Ireland’s model for attracting multinational investment has been even more successful than the most optimistic of forecasters would have predicted. The stars aligned. But looking out over the next few years, there are now serious warning signals, things that Ireland needs to address if it is to win the next phase of investment. Ireland’s multinational model is slowly coming under threat — and dazzled by the stellar tax returns, we may have missed a few warning signs