Sir, – Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports that Donald Trump has been described at a conference on global investment as the “elephant in the room” for Irish foreign direct investment (Business, November 12th). The other “elephant in the room” is our collective amnesia over Ireland’s role as one of the world’s largest tax havens. The untaxed hundreds of billions that flow through Ireland annually have no direct negative impact on us and we do benefit from the “windfall” profits that are taxed here. Indirectly, however, our facilitation of global greed means wealthy institutions have more funds to invest in Irish property, contributing to rising house prices. The untaxed billions partly come from poorer countries, increasing their poverty and generating emigration to Europe and to us. Internationally we like to see ourselves as “punching above our weight” diplomatically, but many countries in the world now view us as a pariah state, effectively punching them. There is no political debate on this important issue. – Yours, etc,
PAUL CONNOLLY,
Cavan.