Mr. Derek Moran:

Deputy Ross got me on the employment numbers. I refer to corporate tax. As Mr. McCarthy said, they are capital intensive in their nature. There is a concentration in that the very large multinationals - the top ten groups - pay us about a third of the total corporation tax. This year is no different from last year in that regard. The things that are changing are that there is across the board performance improvement; 20% more smaller companies are paying tax this year than were last year; and those which were paying tax last year are paying more this year. This is with the multinational sector - the big taxpayers - still retaining the same share of what they pay.

There are other issues that complicate the matter. Anybody who prices in dollars has improved their profitability because of the appreciation of the currency. I am not sure if that explains a huge amount of it but it accounts for some of it. In addition, during the worst economic times, companies were perhaps not making profits and were carrying losses. As they move from a loss-making situation into profitability, they burn off those losses and go from zero to paying a substantial amount of tax. The performance is exceptional by any measure.

We have been talking to the Revenue Commissioners throughout the year. With the exception of relatively small one-offs, the consistent message is that this is not going to necessarily disappear. The overall trading position has been strong and we are still surprised that the momentum has continued as it has. I think it was running at about 45% year on year in October and has gone much higher than that over the past two months.