Ireland's response to the Apple controversy has been to deny, refute and obfuscate

There was a deal with Apple. It’s time to admit it

Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, is seen in profile Picture: Bloomberg

In November 2014, I received a letter of complaint from the Department of Finance. Just weeks earlier, this newspaper had published a story stating that the European Commission had sought details of tax deals between Ireland and a number of multinationals. We had been pursuing the Apple tax story for a number of years, and we had been reliably told that the commission had identified a number of deals that had been agreed ...