It is interesting that the last news about this is the EU saying they are going to appeal, three years ago.
I find the use of such schemes pretty awful regardless of whether they technically fall inside of the law.
At some point you are making enough money that it makes sense for you to hire experts to "optimise" your tax liabilities, just like you'd hire someone to improve your IT infrastructure or your heating bill. If they didn't base their corporate structure around Ireland then it might have been Jersey or Malta or something else that got them 90% of what they had.
It sucks when the outcome is that big companies end up paying less than they're expected to and have lower effective rates than small companies. I see it not as a moral failing so much as a law of nature, like flood waters taking the path of least resistance and destroying slums before bank buildings. Reasonably people certainly differ though.
The GP correctly and idiomatically described a tax deal between RoI and Apple as a 'sweetheart' deal. This is not a legal term of art. The fact that Ireland won its court case and is facing an appeal does not change the fact that something took place which exactly meets the commonly understood definition of a sweetheart deal.