Barry J Whyte on Business

A recent US tax case could cool the corporate romance with Ireland

Dublin Cinema Group, which showed top-grossing films such as Beauty and the Beast last year, had €61 million in its profit and loss account at the end of 2017

Ireland’s exchequer returns can be an unpredictable beast – they have a tendency to overshoot unexpectedly, miss targets or display our worrying reliance on a small number of large multinationals.

Last week they grew, but fell short of expected targets. However, there was good news in that the corporation tax returns were 6.8 per cent ahead of target at €4.37 billion. As we know only too well, that hasn’t always been the case. ...