Mr. Michael Blaney:

Yes, briefly. All-island business units are already very common in the insurance sector. A number of the main insurers, for instance, Allianz, AXA, RSA, already operate on an all-island business unit basis. They have offices in Belfast and Dublin but are managed from Dublin. This level of co-operation has been in place probably for the past nine or ten years. From a natural perspective, it has made more sense for the Northern Ireland business unit to team up with the Republic of Ireland unit as a single trading unit. There is a natural level of collaboration in this regard. There is a concern in our industry as to how this will continue beyond the outcome of Brexit.

At the next level down, regarding representative bodies, there is the Irish Brokers Association, IBA, which is very active here, and we fall under the British Insurance Brokers Association, BIBA. I may not be entirely correct about this but I am not aware of a great level of co-operation between these bodies. Such co-operation would be of great benefit and should be encouraged.