What should Ireland spend the Apple tax money on?
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- Ireland may soon have €13.5bn to play around with in finances after a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice.
Earlier today it sided with the European Commission in its bid to make Apple pay the money - meaning Ireland could now be required to accept the funds which have been sitting in an escrow account for eight years.
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager originally ordered Apple to pay Ireland €13.1bn in 2016 - finding that the country had given companies owned by the US tech giant illegal tax aid.
Both Ireland and Apple have been fighting against the order ever since.
Newstalk's Simon Tierney told Moncrieff he's come up with a few suggestions of how to spend it.
"What I've tried to do is to break down the figures of how much it actually costs to send an astronaut to the Moon," he said.
"The last time this happened was over 50 years ago so there's a huge amount of inflation as you can imagine.
"Between 1960 and 1973 NASA spent $28bn developing the rockets, spacecraft and the ground systems needed for the Apollo programme.
"That comes to $260bn in today's money but that's for the entire Apollo programme - all I want to do is send one Irish man into space".
Simon said we'd need to think about a launch site first.
"The trouble is we don't have a place to launch it, we don't have a Kennedy Space Centre," he said.
"Would it be worth renting the Kennedy Space Centre perhaps for a day or so?"
Simon suggested we could also buy a retired space shuttle which is currently on sale for $28.8m.
Simon said bringing the Olympics to Dublin is another contender.
"At the moment the 2036 Olympic hosting process is still underway," he said.
"There are currently four cities that are vying for the title: Istanbul, Nusantara in Indonesia, Santiago in Chile and Ahmedabad in India," he said.
"Dublin, Ireland can also be part of that.
"We can do our sailing in Dún Laoghaire, our triathlon in the Liffey, we can do our rowing down at Islandbridge.
"We have so many golf courses for the golf event, we can do beach volleyball on Dollymount Strand."
Simon suggested these plans likely aren't ambitious enough.
"Once the clouds of ambition cleared I realised what we should really be aiming for is hosing the Winter Olympics," he said.
"The last Winter Olympics was in 2022 and it was hosted just outside Beijing in China - there was zero real snow used in that.
"You're talking about $60m [which] is what the Chinese spent on snow machines at the Winter Olympics in 2022.
"Winter Olympics are generally much cheaper than a Summer Olympics.
"Use the money that we've left over from hosting a cheaper Olympics to build a massive crossrail through the country".
A feasibility study in 2021 under then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson looked at the possibility of a bridge linking these two islands.
"The closest distance between the British mainland and Northern Ireland is 19 kilometres," Simon said.
"The feasibility study said... it would cost £335bn if it was a bridge and £209bn if it was a tunnel - that's well over the €13bn that we have to spend.
"But the longest over-water bridge in the world in China [which] is 164 kilometres over the sea - ours is 19 kilometres.
"Surely we can do it for cheaper?"
Simon said one potential sticking point could be Beaufort's Dyke - a 300-metre deep crevasse between Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Simon said Ireland could also use the money to grow and secure Ireland's diplomatic footprint.
"We're building all these Ireland Houses in capitals all over the world where they bring cultural Irish centres and diplomatic headquarters together," he said.
"The problem is some of the places around the world are actually rental properties.
"The latest information I could find about this is that the building that we current rent in New Delhi for our embassy and our ambassador costs almost €300,000 in rent per year.
"So my idea is to stop paying rent and instead we buy a gaff in India".
Simon said he's already found a house on sale from Mukesh Ambani - the richest man in Asia - which is priced at around $2bn.
One texter suggested Ireland could just "buy €13bn worth of Apple shares".
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A non-corrupt government could fix both the housing and hospital crisis with that kind of money
How is this even a question 😭😭😭 houses, healthcare please. Full stop. Just that. Enough.
Increase the Pension rate so we can afford a few luxuries, like food and clothing.
How about you save for your future in a PRSA instead of looking for a handout. 200 per month saved from age 20 would make you a millionaire in retirement at 8% return. It should be spent on infrastructure, so the taxpayer actually get's a return on the money. Not given out to dole merchants
@@aightm8 Get lost. I paid income tax PRSI and other tariffs for over fifty years.
@@proinseasburke2681 Yes, and the amount that is currently paid is adequate relative to the average PRSI your age group contributed. The current pension payment of €265.30 is close to the highest it has ever been (inflation adjusted) which was in 2008 pre crisis when it was 223.30 per week (283.93 in today's money). In the 70s, 80s and 90s, adjusted for inflation pensioners were receiving less than 200 a week for 30 years you were working.
You're already receiving more from today's workers, than the retired during your working life receive.
So no thanks, we should spend it on infrastructure. And create multi generational prosperity. Instead of a once off payoff for people who could have been multi millionaires, but weren't able to skim on a few luxuries to contribute to a prsa
@@proinseasburke2681 inflation adjusted the pension is only 17 euro lower than it's all time high. What you get is fair relative to what you paid in.
When you were working. The elders you were contributing for were all getting less than 200 (inflation adjusted). Why do you deserve more?
@@proinseasburke2681 the period where it was less than 200 (inflation adjusted) was the 70s 80s 90s and early 00s.
35 years.
Spend it on housing and a new department of deportation for all our unwanted friends ..
So vulture founds and NGOs traffickers, O think the same.
Until we get more builders in this country we will pay nosebleed prices for constructing social housing
I hope you mean all the tax dogeing huge businesses Mr Pigeon
We have a huge housing problem and this guy wants a space program this is madness
This is for the craic its not meant to be serious
Is this what newstalk would call humor?
On a border,a real one and a proper deportation program
It should be invested in Non Urban projects as part of sustainable Ireland. A rail system on West coast from Donegal to Sligo and Galway would ensure economic and sustainable development can be supported. Thank you.
13 billion party to say goodbye to the indigenous Irish and their ancestors, I mean we are handing over our only homeland we deserve a Thank you party
A few more bike sheds maybe?
Affordable housing and healthcare upgrades,ASAP.
Spend it all on a bicycle shed or a children’s hospital.
Spend it on the freeloaders you are giving them everything!
Pay down our national debt, put it in the sovereign wealth fund, or invest it in energy and infrastructure
Our debt is 200 billion
And has been since 2008
Invest in energy, infrastructure and wealth fund.
How about fix the public hospitals and house irish people in newly build social housing.
But then again they destroyed them and sold out are public services to share holders of big wealth funds.
Now they have no excuses and will show themselves up
@@liamo6889 all 3 are long term improvements.
If you build better infrastructure you can move people out of Dublin and Leinster.
Investing it into our fund is also a long term benefit, look at the Norwegians. When they started their sovereign wealth fund I'm sure there were plenty of naysayers like you, but now it's in the trillions and their population size is the same as ours.
Paying debt is a safe way to spend it, guaranteed return on the money. And when we have to refinance it our interest rates will go up and become unnafordable. It has only worked so far because there have been record low interest rates for a long time. If we have to start paying proper interest it will be a massive expense.
A better way to approach building housing would be to incentivise people to work in trades.
Or instead of importing useless people, we should incentivise migrants who have a trade to come and work here legally.
If we build housing now we won't get much done because we will pay nosebleed prices. And the state starting a massive project would only make supply and demand worse.
That's why infrastructure is a better idea. If everything is better connected, we can build in more rural areas. Wont help with the labor shortage but at least the land prices will be lower.
Energy independence is another no brainier way to spend it. We could be exporting energy to Europe and the UK with offshore wind and making a fortune.
With 13.5 billion euro you could almost build enough shelter for 722,156 bikes. Think of all the dry bikes we could have.
Typical Newstalk, so out of touch with the irish people
Personally I think it's not a great skit might work best on April's fool's day 😂😂😂
We are richer than the Kardashians now.....🇨🇮🤠📸
13 billion wouldn't solve any issue. Homelessness cannot be "solved".
Want to stop the housing crisis? Maybe stop importing tens of thousands of people every year! Wouldn't cost much at all!
What was the whole weird space segment about?
It should be spent on homes for Irish people, improve the health system and maybe a few more schools, since many Irish children cannot even get into a school.
The list:
More Housing
More Teachers
More Garda.
More prisons.
Energy independence.
Education.
Black hole time bomb state pension.
Paying off national debt.
Military capability to patrol our own territory.
The list of things we NEED to improve Irish society immediately is unreal. Space missions are way way pipe dreams down the list.
Fix whats broken first, stop suggesting stupid ideas
Some of the windfall must be spent on research to produce green electricity as an Island nation. If the present government fails to use this money to fund our future energy needs, then they are not the government for the future of our country, and this will be reflected in the next election.
Why Ireland should be put into administration
Is this a comedian playing a part or just a poor chap out of touch with reality?
Money never sleeps, who collected the interest on the 13 billion?
@@davidshields948 Ireland collects the interest. But the money was invested in euro government bonds so there was very little return. We get about 14BN in total
@@davidshields948 invested in euro government bonds before interest rates went up I mean
@@aightm8 thank you. So there's yet another thousand million were not being told about. ?
@@davidshields948 I think something like 500m
Spend it on housing for the new Irish
This guy is the biggest melt I’ve ever listened to. Imagine bumping into that at a bar 😂
Spend it on getting rid of politicians and just hire qualified people to do the jobs of politicians for an average wage for 2 years then be swapped out with other none politicians and no big pensions for them just the same as anyone else would get.
(1) Health (2) Housing (3) Energy (4) 24/7 Cardiac Care for Waterford (South-East) University Hospital (5) Waterford (South-East) Airport
How much does it cost to send the whole government to space?
Those are stupid ideas. Space, in particular, is ridiculous.
Housing and healthcare are priorities.
Thats the general idea ,its called humour lad,humour
Keep it in the bank for economic stimulus packages, financial crisis coming in 2025.
Housing. If they don't tackle housing, then they should be tackled.
Those figures for wages are wrong.
Employer PRSI & Pension contribution omitted!
Is those guys are crazy?
Bless your cotton socks
He would want to be put into space
Hyper loop, connect the whole country. Galway to cork 45 minutes. Dublin to Limerick in five Taylor Swift songs 😂
This guy is an fool ther are alot of irish homeless who need housing.
Its called humour
You can bring more immigrants 😂😂😂😂
A REALLY nice bike shed. One that could store like.. 12 whole bikes!
Make the best health care system in the world
Mica houses
The money should go to the Defense forces then the garda and then housing
Healthcare housing and public transport
Space exploration 😂
We could afford 2 ney 3 more bike sheds or finish another room in the children's hospital, although not a very big one
Build a few football /soccer stadiums that have enclosed roofs so can be used all year around can be multiple users for all sports running tracks, etc including concerts.
We don't need more big stadiums, if it is spent on sport it should go to local clubs and grassroots. So in 20 years we might actually be able to field a national side with premier league players.
We have tonnes of big concert venues already, really makes no sense.
Yes indeed. Modest municipal stadiums for the league of Ireland football clubs would be a great idea. Finn Harps have been struggling for nearly 20 years to build a small new stadium for themselves in Donegal, a county with a unique rural soccer tradition.
If Finn Harps were in any other EU country a small municipal stadium would have been provided for them years ago.
They would be GAA stadiums if they are going to be multisport,because paradoxically given the history only GAA stadiums can accomodate all the sports played here because of the playing area and even with running track your stadiums still wouldn;t be big enough for GAA.GAA doesn't need it of course but all sports meansall sports.
@@Joseph13163 South Dublin county council and Shamrock Rovers might not agree with you.
But anyway you’ve highlighted the unique problems faced by Irish football, as they try to compete in the world’s biggest sport.
Give it back to Apple maybe since your government didn't want it.
An even bigger big shed.
Here government ya can buy 13 more bikes for your shed 😏
Bitcoin and lots of it
That should cover 2-3 bike shed cost
A new modern high speed rail system !