Professor Alan Barrett:

In terms of when the wealth tax work will be available, the Department of Finance holds an annual taxation conference in November. I cannot remember the precise date but I know a presentation is scheduled. I will make sure an invitation is sent directly to the Deputy.

The Deputy does not understand that even economists have feelings but I will not rehearse the discussion we had on this once before. I agree with him that only so much can be captured in a model. He needs to understand that economists are, increasingly, looking at a whole range of indicators, including notions of well-being. It is becoming a big part of what we do and I shall give a personal example. My most recent economics paper is on the mental effects of retirement and was published a few weeks ago. In terms of what was the dependent variable that I was interested in, and we have used Trinity's TILDA data, The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, we are looking at whether people's depressive symptoms increase when they retire.