Mr. Ronan Hession:

It is really a question of the mathematics. The Ernst & Young analysis carried out about five years ago suggested that even if Ireland were to increase the rate to compensate, it would not work. Our foreign direct investment and investment environment is too sensitive to the rate. It would be self-defeating. We have to do our own analysis of what we think the effect would be. At present, we have older analyses that we can certainly talk about for now until we get our figures together. We have the Commission's own analysis, into which we have yet to dig with it. One factor that is different now is that we have the fiscal rules. There is external disciplining of how we run a balanced budget in that if it were to eat into the base, it would have to be paid for. That would mean either raising other taxes or scaling back the ambition in public expenditure.