Ireland will not be part of a core group of nine EU countries implementing a financial transaction tax so long as the UK remains outside the group, the Minister for Finance has said.
Michael Noonan said: "We have stamp duty on share transactions at 1%, we don't want to go beyond that at present".
He said: "The British aren't prepared to go beyond that, Luxembourg isn't prepared to go beyond that."
"The risk of the activities in financial services moving from Ireland to other centres, particularly London, Luxembourg, the Netherlands is quite high," he added.
Mr Noonan said nine countries had agreed to forge ahead to apply a financial transaction tax.
Most of the remaining 18 countries had decided not to block the idea, according to Mr Noonan.
A financial transaction tax is the price German opposition MPs extracted from chancellor Angela Merkel in order to support the fiscal compact in a Bundestag vote next week, and it is supported by France.
One idea is that it could create a fund to cushion taxpayers from having to bailout banks.
Under the enhanced co-operation procedure a financial transaction tax can go ahead among a core group of countries, but only if there is no impact on the internal market and if it does not adversely affect other countries which are not involved.
Under today's procedure the nine countries involved have asked the European Commission to bring forward proposals on how such a financial transaction tax might work among a core group of countries.
