SBP editorial: Data is the ‘double Irish’ of our times

It’s been almost six years to the day since the touch paper was lit on a fierce international debate about Ireland’s corporation tax policy, when Apple chief executive Tim Cook addressed a US Senate panel on the company’s international tax structures in May 2013.

Following an uncomfortable hearing which threw a spotlight on ‘ocean companies’ and other exotic concepts, Ireland’s tax practices came under unprecedented scrutiny.

It is hard to say definitively, but ...