Debate contribution: Fiscal Devolution

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 29 April 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

29 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Fiscal Devolution

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4921795

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Earlier this month, the Assembly passed a motion supporting tax increases for the super-wealthy, which I spoke on and supported. It is to be welcomed that some parties are finally in step with ordinary people, who have long demanded that the rich pay their way for our public services. The Executive, however, always seem to direct their focus solely at Westminster and never towards the wealthy and powerful at our front door, who do exist.

Since 2015, the North has had the power to set corporation tax rates, but the conversation is dominated by calls, mainly from the business lobby and its enablers, to lower corporation tax rather than being about the social good, proper taxation and the rich paying their way. People Before Profit has always been clear that corporation tax should be raised in the North. It should not be controversial to say that corporations should pay at least the same amount of tax as people pay on their wages. I will give way to anybody who wants to disagree on that point.

OK. Six companies in the North have a turnover of £1 billion. The top 100 companies in the North have a turnover of £35 billion. We are not talking about taxing corner shops. There is an abundance of corporate wealth here, including wealth that has been accumulated by private companies that deliver what are supposed to be public services.

I do recognise that, yes. I also recognise assets and that companies and corporations have combined wealth through their assets and profit from them. Those are all bound together, and it depends what column you are looking at. Money is money, and there is billions there.

Great economics from the sidelines from the party that does not want to tax corporations. Over the past decade, the Executive have handed £125 million to just one private hospital to tackle our health waiting lists. The DUP supported that handout as well. It seems like there is an endless pit of money to line the pockets of the rich but never enough money for a decent social security system, fair pay, social housing, mental health services and our collapsing education system. It is the same old story, whether it is the Tories, Labour or this Executive. This island is a hostile environment for working-class communities, but it is a safe haven for multimillion-pound corporations such as Apple, Google and many others. The North, disgracefully, is the only part of these islands that gives multinational corporations rate relief. Parties in this Building lament —.

I will give way in a second. Those parties lament rates rises for ordinary people and households, but they are happy for corporations to be given millions of pounds of handouts every single year while their profit margins, assets, numbers — call them what you want — rise. I will give way.

Yes. I am happy to engage with that argument despite —.

Let me speak. The Member has a disgraceful track record of sticking the boot into asylum seekers whilst talking about the housing crisis, so I am loath to give way to his pretty disgraceful agenda. The Member should not kick down. The Member is happy to kick migrants and asylum seekers but he does not have a word to say about billionaires and corporations that are ripping people off. Less of that. Less of that.

Mr Speaker, I will continue. Each year, £73 million of public money is being spent on the likes of Moy Park, Caterpillar and Coca-Cola. There is no opposition to that from Mr Buckley, who claims to stand up for the common people. The question is this: what sort of society do we want? Do we want one that welcomes big businesses with open arms, bends over backwards for them and gives them endless rates and tax breaks while they exploit workers and the local environment and one that, frankly, plays into the hands of the Trump economic agenda? Or do we want one that forces huge corporations and the millionaires and billionaires — they do exist on this island — to pay their fair share? A radical redistribution of wealth is the only way to materially improve the lives of the majority of people here. It is time that we use our fiscal powers to break with the regressive economic orthodoxy of Westminster and the Dáil. Our public services and the ordinary people who use them depend upon our doing that.

743 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:27 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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