set up to oversee the expansion of the IFSC's site (most notable being the reclamation of the Grand Canal Basin site) The "dual structure" Irish corporate tax rate, came under pressure from the EC (due to competition rules), and it was agreed that it would expire in 2005. In advance of this deadline, the Irish Government in the 1998/1999 Finance Acts introduced a lower 12.5% corporate tax rate for the entire country which was fully introduced from 1 January 2003, and by 1 January 2006, all remaining IFSC companies (some held their old licenses) were on a 12.5% rate. The IFSC ceased to exist as a required legal entity. The next major event was the Irish financial crisis from 2008 to 2013. The IFSC was a major EU securitisation hub and the effect of billion euro special purpose vehicles (or SPVs) collapsing added to the concern over Ireland's financial position. It did not help that these SPVs (and other IFSC type activities) produced a further distorted picture of Ireland's already precarious National Accounts statistics. The sudden drop in Dublin's ranking on the Global Financial Centres Index ("GFCI") from an all-time high of 10th in March 2009 (GFCI 5), to 23rd by September 2009 (GFCI 6), sparked a formal investigation. A tightening by the Irish regulator (after a period of lose regulation) which followed the Irish financial crisis led some financial institutions to move operations elsewhere (as well as others who were exited) and caused Dublin's GFCI ranking as a financial services centre to drop further to 70th in 2014 (GFI 16). IFSC institutions cited the timeliness of decisions by the Central Bank of Ireland as having an impact on their operations. Since 2014 however, the IFSC has started to recover, rising to 31 in the 2016 GCFI 21 ranking. The IFSC Securitisation Sector produced a major domestic scandal when it was revealed in mid-2016 that US Distressed Debt funds (pejoratively called "vulture funds") had been using the Irish Section 110 SPV to avoid all Irish taxes on their Irish domestic investments. The Irish Government closed the "loopholes" but it was estimated that the loss in Irish tax revenues to the Irish exchequer runs to billions of euros (exceeding the value the securitisation sector ever delivered to Ireland). Discussed further in vulture fund Irish tax avoidance. The IFSC Securitisation Sector was further pressured when it was revealed in 2018 that Russian