Cook told Irish news service RTE that Apple didn’t have any special tax rights in the Republic, even though his company was paying corporate tax of 0.005 percent, amounting to next to nothing.

Cook described the EC’s decision as “an outrage” and that Apple did the “right thing”. He said the decision was “political crap”.

He said that both the Irish government and Apple were clearly guiltless.

The Irish cabinet hasn’t yet decided whether it will appeal the decision, but Apple certainly will. It is expected to make its mind up tomorrow.

Apple has a complex web of separate subsidiaries but Cook claimed it was the biggest corporate taxpayer in the Republic.

Cook said that Apple will siphon or "repatriate" several billion dollars to the United State - probably next year.