“I Presume that it is the fact that Ireland is playing he long game”
I presume it’s more likely that Ireland was participating in a long con!
Given the effective rate of tax for Apple prior to the investigation was 0.005%, I think that for Ireland to receive an equivalent 14 billion euros in tax revenue, they would have had to wait decades if not never.
Has any official source compared the current windfall to projected income had the state of affairs not changed. Including the cost of brown envelopes of course!