Mr. Kevin Thompson:

In other countries they have a joined-up approach between their treasury-department of finance and their regulator. We know that from our experience. On the question of whether Ireland is losing out and what we can do in terms of addressing the perception around that, it is unfortunate that in recent weeks we have seen high-profile cases that have been decided in favour of other jurisdictions - not just one jurisdiction, but we have seen decisions in favour of Luxembourg and Brussels, and unfortunately Dublin has come up second best.

I go back to my statement on our proposed solutions. If we look at the implementation of Solvency II since 1 January 2016, it is a harmonised and robust prudential framework. It is based on the risk profiling of each individual company. Within that, national supervisory authorities have a certain amount of leeway in how they actually apply it. We firmly believe, particularly in the context of Brexit and for companies that are regulated by the prudential regulatory authority in the UK, which is a regulatory authority the equal to our jurisdiction, that if companies have gone through a robust approval process in that jurisdiction and are looking under a common Solvency II-EU framework and seeking to re-domicile some of their business so that they can maintain access to the European framework, that should be taken into account. If it is taken into account, we believe it helps us in terms of stabilising our insurance market, it helps the UK in terms of their access to Europe, but more importantly it helps the European insurance market as well. That would be the first point.

In terms of a regulatory corridor, we know from dialogue between our membership that the PRA, for companies that are based here and accessing the UK market, face the same challenge. If we could get a regulatory corridor in place it would help greatly. If we have this grandfathering idea and have an approval in principle - we know some other jurisdictions are doing that and then working through the detail - it would help greatly in terms of perception.

There was another question asked about an insurance company in the North considering relocating to the South. From an insurance perspective it is a huge decision and it takes time to decide on a location if one decides to exit the UK. There are many considerations at play, such as infrastructure and housing, but the most heavily weighted consideration is the regulatory environment and how that regulatory environment is operated within this jurisdiction.

I think I have covered all the points.