Mr. Aidan Carrigan:

First of all, we are at the outset of a negotiation at European level, so we are not determining. We are informing the committee what the issues are in the negotiation and the kind of negotiation position we are taking. We are not dealing with hard and fast conclusions here. The outcome will be some kind of compromise in these areas.

What we are saying is that the impact of the current proposal and the extent of the buffer in the current proposal has not been properly assessed and that the impact has the probability of being very damaging to this industry. I have a few comments relating to what the Deputy said. It is not our intention to guarantee corporate investors that they cannot lose money if they invest in these funds. There must be the possibility of losing money. However, these are low-risk funds and the risk of losing money is less because it is for turning over cash on short term. There is a possibility that these funds might lose money and in that case, the concern of the Government is financial stability. The Government's concern is to ensure that a run on the markets does not occur as a result of a sudden fear and to put the necessary protections in place - not to protect an investor against losing a bit of money but to protect financial stability and ensure that something does not build into a run. The benefit of gates and liquidity fees is that they limit the rate at which money can be taken out in the event of a sudden impact and, therefore, provide time for a correction and for the market to adjust. It contributes to stability, not to protecting corporate investors.

It has been pointed out that the latest figures will show that 11% is invested in government-secured debt at the moment, but that is just a small point.