"To be quite clear about this, the Irish corporate tax rate has been a key cornerstone of our economic policy - getting that tax rate down to 12.5pc and keeping it there - and we don't see the same kind of pressure from Europe as we might have experienced some years back," Mr Martin stated during an Enterprise Ireland mission to Australia.

The minister's comments have come in response to a number of recent reports that would appear to suggest that Ireland's low corporate tax rate is under attack from a variety of directions. On the one hand, there is growing tension within the European Union on the issue of tax harmonisation, an idea to which Ireland is, understandably, emphatically opposed, whilst on the other, the recent news that Microsoft had booked almost $10 billion in sales through an obscure Dublin-based subsidiary known as Round Island One in 2003/2004 has earned Ireland "tax haven" status in certain sections of the American press.

As if the Irish government needed reminding that an increase in corporate tax is unlikely to be well received by the large number of multinationals which have established operations in Ireland, Dell chief executive, Kevin Rollins warned in an interview with the Sunday Business Post at the weekend that the computer giant would consider relocating if corporate taxes in the Republic increase.

"Any time a cost goes up, we will reassess our position, particularly with tax," he said.

However, Mr Rollins rejected the notion that Ireland could be considered a tax haven, observing of the corporate tax rate that: "frankly it is just good business."