The point is that the people making the deal are not physically located in Ireland. The negotiation, sale etc. is all taking place in the UK. They then twist the law to the point where they can legally claim it took place in Ireland.
Nobody cares about the people doing the negotiation. The contracts are not between people, they are between companies, or at best, between people and companies, and what matters is where the contracts are *executed*.
Also while you might be able to decide whose laws are used to negotiate disputes regarding the contract you cannot decide whose laws apply to taxation resulting from the contract.
Actually, you can. And companies do. Because nations let them do so. Because it's in the nations best interest to get some of the take, rather than none of it.
They are following the absolute letter of the law and using it to get around their social responsibilities to support the society in which they operate which is immoral, or to put it another way evil. So I'm guessing they have had the same lawyers figure out how to get around their "do no evil" rule.
First, I'm guessing we are now specifically talking about Google's "Don't be evil" motto, which is specifically a reference to the Chinese wall between advertising income and search results (i.e. search results will not be swayed just because you buy advertising for sponsored links). Which means it's irrelevant to this discussion, but if you want to read more about it, knock yourself out, the reference is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Second, you appear to be equating giving money to a government which has admitted to spying on its own people as a means of social and political control as "moral", which I have to believe is a passing reference to Rosseau's "Social Contract", aka: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
I think if you read that, you'll see that the U.K. government doesn't qualify as what Rosseau is describing in his social contract as "monarchy" or "aristocracy", since the U.K. is, at best, a Representative Democracy, or Republic, rather than a true Democracy.
But let's grant you that anyway, at the same time granting the same to the U.S., which is also technically a Republic.
I'd argue that Google has done a better job in terms of the social contract than those elected to govern. Specifically, the difference between the government doing "Google Fiber" and Google doing it, is that Google actually did it. It's not like the government lacks for money (if it needs money, it borrows it against the credit of the citizens, or it confiscates it from the citizens by way of taxation, or it confiscates it from the citizens by printing it - with concomitant inflation (e.g. so called "Quantitative Easing").
So Google is a better adherent to the social contract, if we can agree that by virtue of being born into a society, you tacitly agree to the societies shrink-wrap license, even though it's not like you had any choice in the matter.
Until the U.K.government can demonstrate better social responsibility than Google, I'm pretty happy to leave the money in the hands of those who will use it most wisely, as opposed to giving it to people with a demonstrably poor track record instead.
PS: One of the main tenets of philanthropy by individuals who have accumulated extreme wealth is that they have a demonstrated track record of understanding the system; a second tenet is that one persons enlightened judgement is often better at making socially beneficial decisions on how to wield the economic power of society than a bunch of bureaucrats - Carnegie Free Libraries, and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation's emphasis on clean water and maria eradication, and the Rockefeller Foundations charitable works all being examples of where governments talk a good game, but end up doing squat in terms of useful effect.
