Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter wonders whether the economic argument for the protocol will prevail over political considerations (Opinion & Analysis, March 3rd).
In his review of the history of the economic performance of Northern Ireland, he writes of Sinn Féin and the DUP making common cause by going to Downing Street to demand unsuccessfully that the North be allowed to set its own lower rate of corporation tax.
In 2015 the UK government published proposals to devolve corporation tax powers to Belfast. The Fresh Start Agreement committed the NI Executive to reducing the tax rate to 12.5 per cent from 2018. It did not happen.
In January 2020, the NI minister of finance, Conor Murphy, announced that the Executive “was not actively pursuing” a lower rate of corporation tax for Northern Ireland. The explanation was that, for NI to secure a reduction in the tax rate, it would have to agree to a reduction in the block grant it receives from London to fund public services.
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Tellingly, even a Sinn Féin minister of finance at Stormont preferred the certainty of the cheque from London to the potentially significant but uncertain benefits of a lower corporation tax rate. – Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.
