It's actually quite genius as evidenced by other comments in this thread.

People now think the double Irish is closed when it isn't.

And when another country publicly condemns Ireland, the finance minister can say "we've already closed one, we're working on it!".

I think that is unfair. Ireland chose to have a low corporate tax rate, a decision that can be motivated by many considerations. While this does create a loophole where companies try to pay corporate tax in Ireland on profits that, without careful accounting, would usually be taxable in other countries, this does not mean Ireland is in the wrong. If he is speaking in good faith, then Ireland should want to keep its low corporate tax rate, but fix the accounting rules that allow profits to be shifted from one country to another so easily. These rules are not necessarily within Ireland's control (I'm not an expert in international taxation, though I find it fascinating).

This is what Google is doing.

$4.9 billion of sales occur in the UK, which is 10% of global revenue. However, only $29 million of corporation tax is payable to the UK - that's 0.3% - because Google lies and says that UK sales are actually Irish sales.

This deception occurs because basically 99.9% of the work is done in the UK, but the final signature on the sales contract is made in Ireland. This is from a Google whistleblower who was featured in the UK press.

Of course, the Irish subsidiary doesn't pay low corporate taxes on all this revenue, because it happens to have HUGE expenses in the form of intellectual property royalty payments, which need to be made to Google Bermuda (or whatever other tax haven they are using to hold the IP).

So really, Ireland is getting shafted too, just like the UK.