An Taoiseach Simon Harris has said his ‘thinking’ on the spending of the €14 billion fund resulting from the Apple tax revenue case, is that it should be spent on improving water quality, renewable energy and housing and could actually result in Ireland retaining its nitrates derogation.
Harris was speaking in an exclusive live on-stage interview at the Agriland stand at Ploughing 2024 in Ratheniska, Co. Laois today (Thursday, September 19).
Earlier this month, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) did not find in favour of Ireland’s arguments in the Apple state aid case.
The Irish position had been that Ireland does not give preferential tax treatment to any companies or taxpayers.
The CJEU found that the tax paid was insufficient and that a greater amount of taxation was required to be recovered, which amounted to a total of €14.1 billion.
You can watch the Taoiseach’s full interview by clicking here.
Nitrates derogation
Speaking today, Simon Harris said: “There aren’t decisions yet, but I’ll tell you where my heads at; I want to see one-off, windfall funding that we have, if you want to call it Apple or indeed from the sale of bank shares, I want to see it pumped into water, electricity on the grid and housing.
“I think if we do those three areas, we’ll have put that money to good use and I also think we’ll have helped to support farming, support the model of farming and I think it’ll help retain the nitrates derogation,” he told Agriland.
The derogation allows the application of a higher amount of livestock manure than that provided for in the Nitrates Regulations (where the limit is 170kg organic N/ha/annum) subject to certain conditions.
With a delegation from the European Commission in Ireland this week to assess Ireland’s bid to retain its current nitrates derogation, An Taoiseach has said the derogation is “an economic asset” to the country.
“We’re going to need to have a government who will fight the nitrates derogation; this one [current government] will,” Harris continued.
“When we have an election, it’s very important that the people we have around tables will fight for that and understand farming and understand the importance of this issue as well, because these are political decisions that will get made at a European level.
“We don’t walk into a room with our head down and ask people nicely; we walk in with our head proudly high and say this is a country that contributes significantly to the European budget.
“In Ireland, we understand our farming model needs the nitrates derogation,” An Taoiseach added.
Harris did stress however, that in order to retain the derogation, farmers will have to be shown the way to improve water quality.
“We can’t just go in and say ‘the nitrates derogation is great, we want to keep it’,” he continued.
“We do have to show people the roadmap for it, in terms of water quality because we do need to improve water quality and that’s where I think, being able to show, alongside the argument for derogation, being able to show a sustained multi-annual programme of investment in water quality, using resources that are now at our disposal, could be really helpful,” he said.