Mr. Conor O'Kelly:

First, we had no currency exposure in terms of any of our debt. Everything is hedged; both interest rates and currency are hedged completely, so we did not have any exposure in that regard. From our narrower point of view on Brexit, obviously the implications of Brexit are all encompassing, and much more so for many of members than for me, there are the political and geopolitical implications and then there is the economic impact. Nobody is saying it will be a positive for Ireland.

It will be a drag but the question is what will be the impact ultimately. Our own team probably feels that the correlation is a bit higher between UK GDP falls and our GDP. They are saying that for a 1% fall in UK GDP, Ireland would expect the GDP fall to be 0.8% or 0.9%, which is at the higher end of most of the economists' figures. It will be a negative impact and it will have a drag. We will have to wait and see how much it is.

In the interest rate market and what has happened in terms of interest rates since the vote, if the Deputy had asked me where would German ten-year yields and Irish ten-year yields be four weeks after Britain had decided on Brexit, that is, to exit the EU, I am afraid I have to say my prediction at that stage would have been a long way off. I might have been able to guess where Germany was - it is currently around 0% or -5 basis points - but Ireland has traded extremely well and I probably would have said it could have been out at 1% in ten-year notes. It is around 0.5%. We have not had any real credit impact, if one likes, for Ireland or the other peripheral countries. Why is that? It is because investors react to the first thing in front of their noses. The political and economic impacts are down the road and the thing in front of their noses that they really believe in is central banks and their ability to pump liquidity into the system. That is a proven capability that all the central banks have and they have indicated they are prepared to that do again if there is any kind of instability in the marketplace. That confidence in liquidity coming in has been what has driven spreads lower and kept credit spreads tight. We should not be complacent about that. That is a short-term phenomenon because of that liquidity that they are confident of coming into the system. Ultimately, the economic impact for Ireland and any political impact, if negative, will be reflected in our credit spreads in the medium term.