Apple’s tax billions cannot be spent all at once, Paschal Donohoe has said. 

Following a ruling by the European Court of Justice, the tech giant is obliged to pay the State a sum of around €14 billion. 

With the budget just around the corner, the Minister for Public Expenditure said taxpayers should not expect it to be all spent at once. 

“One point worth emphasising is that the budget we have for next year won’t change,” he told The Anton Savage Show. 

“Nobody could reasonably propose trying to spend that amount of money extra in an economy in a single year. 

“We just don’t have the workers who would be capable of turning that money into additional activity without causing inflation.” 

iPhone 15 Pro models. Image: Apple

Minister Donohoe said “no decisions have been made” about what it will eventually be spent on but hinted it could be spent on infrastructure. 

“If you look at how we handled matters like this in the past, I think there are good lessons,” he said. 

“When we benefited from structural and cohesion funding a number of years ago, large amounts of money that became available to us were spent over a number of years. 

“That had a huge impact on the ability of our economy to grow but gave the companies and the State itself time to get the people that we needed to do the work. 

“I think that will be an important lesson in the decisions that we’re yet to make on this €14 billion.” 

Mininster for Finance Pascal Donohue pictured in the Department of Finance prior to the delivery of Budget 2023 today 27 September 2022.
Photograph: Government Information Service.

Taoiseach Simon Harris has ruled out using the €14 billion for day-to-day spending but promised there would be “careful consideration” before any commitments are made. 

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has suggested some of it could be spent building more homes. 

“Obviously because it’s only a one-off tax receipt, my own view is it should be invested in infrastructure [and] housing is obviously an important element of it,” he said. 

Details of what the money will be spent on will be announced in Budget 2025 on October 1st.

Main image: Paschal Donohoe in the Newstalk studio. Image: Ciara Treacy/Newstalk