Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

Yes, but I will make a point or two. The redundancy and insolvency payment scheme came to the Department in 2011. It had a long tail of debt attached to it. We have added to that considerably because of the number of redundancies and insolvencies in the intervening period.

Pursuant to an audit conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General in 2013 or 2014, we undertook to engage in an extensive review of the debt that was on our books. We have completed that exercise. Our difficulty is that the majority of the debt is attached to insolvent companies, so we are not in a position to recover it. We cannot write that debt off while the insolvency process is ongoing. It may not be the answer that the Chairman wants to hear, but the number will decrease considerably in 2017 or 2018 because of the number of firms that will have exited or concluded the insolvency process and we will not be able to recover that debt. At a best guess, some 90% of that figure is probably not recoverable.