Mr. Pat Lardner:

Approximately 2,000 Irish funds are sold or distributed into the UK. That is a significant proportion of our funds. They are distributed on the basis of, for example, the UCITS directive, which allows a fund established in Ireland and regulated by a national competent authority - in our case, the Central Bank of Ireland - to be accepted for sale in another EU jurisdiction. If the UK ceases to be a member of the EU, we must find another basis for that.

This is a fluid situation but, to our understanding, there are ways in which the UK authorities could enable that to happen. There should be an encouragement from our side to allow that in the absence of any deal. I understand that we are a part of a larger negotiating team when it comes to matters of exit.

As well as looking for the ability to distribute an Irish fund into the UK, a large number of Irish domiciled funds rely on UK investment management expertise to provide part of their service packages. We would want the ability to delegate to continue. That is not specifically prohibited in all cases, but we have outlined the fact that, were it to be the case that UK firms could not provide those services, it would be detrimental to the interests of EU investors from a product choice point of view and, as a flow-on from that, detrimental from an Irish industry perspective.