Mr. Gerry Howard:

Ten companies produce quite a large amount of that corporation tax yield, and that is why we need to be cautious. I would not predict anything about how those ten companies might behave in the future, but there are other factors concerning domestic businesses, so there are many issues that play into the future yield. If we lose some, we may gain others, so it would be very hard to put a figure on any of these things. I would certainly advise caution but it is not Revenue's specific role to advise on what those issues might be.

We not have yet received the returns for 2015 so it will be next year before we have those returns and have had a chance to study them. That is probably where we can feed into the debate more precisely. When we see what has given rise to these additional profits, it may be of value to people.