If there was ever an interview to ruffle a few Irish feathers it was Thomas Piketty – a world-leading wealth distribution economist – speaking to this paper recently, calling Ireland’s tax model “a mediocre development strategy” which imposes fiscal and social costs on everybody else.

Brave is the man who dares to touch the goose that lays the foreign direct investment (FDI) eggs. The proponents of Ireland’s economic model – a model long acknowledged to belong to an era that is intellectually and morally over – fought back on three fronts: the harm our model does to other countries is in fact minimal; the Americans could close their loopholes if they so desired; and one of the world’s most celebrated economists was not, on reflection, worthy of our time.

As an economist my perspectives often violently disagree with Piketty’s analyses and certainly on his solutions, but facts remain facts regardless of how much we dislike the mirror that they put in front of us. And the fact at the centre of this discussion is the following: our tax model diverts tax bases from countries where there is real design and manufacturing and sales into ours – which does not do these activities.

One could – and in Ireland often does – argue that every country has policies which negatively impact other countries, and in any case the harms are comparatively minimal. But what is not........

© The Irish Times