Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, no, I've pointed out that, in fact, that activity would simply have relocated elsewhere. It wouldn't have stopped the activity. So, the point I'm trying to make is that the reply that I gave back in 6 April 2006, sort of, gives out the background to this. I'm advised by the Revenue Commissioners, it states:

[I]n the light of the planned review, with a view to the Budget 2007 announcements, and of the surrounding circumstances, they had decided to allow the existing practices of CFD issuers to continue, pending the review. They further advised that a CFD business could otherwise have simply transferred to non-Irish equities. There is unlikely to be any net loss of stamp duty.

So it wasn't a question that we were losing stamp duty, it was a question of these transactions taking place somewhere else.

They were going to happen, and what we needed to do was get the Revenue Commissioners to come forward with a proposal that would deal with any threat of abuse of that in terms of how it would affect us, and that's what they did in due course.