In this first instalment of Financial Justice Ireland’s new guest blog series, we’re really pleased to introduce a short piece from Alex Cobham, economist and Chief Executive of the Tax Justice Network. Alex recently joined us for a tax justice capacity-building workshop here in Dublin. The following day, Alex participated in another tax event. Here, he reflects on the combined experience of both events:
In late October I was in Dublin for two quite different meetings on international tax justice. The first, hosted by Financial Justice Ireland (FJI), was a convening of Irish civil society. The second was the Global Tax Policy Conference 2025 of the Irish Tax Institute and Harvard Centre for International Development.
In the first, FJI facilitated a wide-ranging discussion based around presentations on the evolution of the Irish tax model (Dr Nessa Ní Chasaide, Maynooth University), the global state of tax justice (me), and the persisting iniquities of economic and financial relations between the global North and South (Ucizi Ngulube, ActionAid Zambia/TaxEd Alliance). We talked through the challenges facing Ireland as the world shifts and its model becomes increasingly under threat – not least from the United States, emerging as the greatest global threat to countries obtaining their fair share of tax revenues. It was particularly valuable to have an open discussion about the damage that Ireland imposes on others, and to understand more about how this is associated with a model that simultaneously supports greater public investment at home but also leaves major social inequalities untouched.
Our analysis shows Ireland as one of the greatest revenue ‘winners’ from corporate tax abuse. At the same time, the country is responsible for costs around the world – including revenue losses in low-income countries that equate on average to over 10% of their public health spending, with inevitable impacts on infant and maternal mortality, among many other critical indicators. There is scope for a ‘win-win’ outcome, in which Ireland takes a progressive role in contributing to a fairer global tax architecture through the ongoing negotiations of a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, while at the same time managing down its dependence on revenues that were rightly due elsewhere.
The second meeting had a very different vibe, with a largely corporate audience, though interestingly some common points too. Following opening remarks from finance minister Pascal Donohoe (now departed to the World Bank), I spoke on a panel with the chair of the UN negotiations (and vice minister of finance for Egypt), Dr Mohamed Ramy Yousef. We were joined by leading tax academic (and a former member of President Joe Biden’s Treasury team), Prof Kim Clausing; the European Commission’s Benjamin Angel; and PwC’s Will Morris and Paraic Burke. A year previously I might have been the only speaker to mention the UN process – but this year it was a key point of discussions, including in other sessions. The unreliability of an international tax system managed by the OECD and subject to a US veto came through repeatedly, along with the resulting risks to Ireland’s business model – although few were willing to speak to the latter directly, even when I posed a direct question at the end of my remarks.
There is both a threat and an opportunity for Irish civil society in this contrast. On the one hand, the commitment of Ireland’s business and political community to the old model of attracting profit shifting from elsewhere, could not have been clearer. There were celebratory remarks about Ireland’s ability to have responded to previous changes, all the while maintaining its position. Nothing spoke to a willingness to consider the damage done to others – quite the contrary. And so it will continue to be difficult to raise the question of how and whether Ireland should prepare for a new order, in which very substantial revenues may no longer be available if international tax rules develop to protect others’ tax sovereignty.
But on the other hand, the opportunity is clear in that no party can deny the ongoing shifts. As the US positions itself as the preferred tax haven for its own multinationals, Ireland will struggle to compete – and doing so successfully would risk the disfavour of an increasingly erratic US president. Civil society may be able to combine popular concern over social issues, with hardheaded economic analysis of the risks now facing the Irish model, into a wide-reaching appeal to use the existing ‘windfall’ revenues from corporate tax in order to smooth a transition into a much less internationally damaging approach.
Alex Cobham, economist and chief executive of the Tax Justice Network
Hear Alex speaking at our October 2025 tax justice capacity building session here.
