Mr. Gerry Howard:

We might explain how IP works in general. Again, we are careful about what we say about these things. If we take a typical company that manufactures a high-end product in Ireland that uses IP - this is nothing uncommon because it goes on all over the world - we can see that the company can get its IP by either purchasing it, creating it or renting it through a royalty from somebody else. In 2015, if a company was renting it and paying a royalty for it, obviously, its profits would be smaller because it would have been coming out of its trading profit but if the company was claiming it as a capital allowance, its trading profits will be there and the company will be getting it from those trading profits. That is probably what the Deputy is seeing reflected in the 2015 accounts. In general, there are two ways a company can do it. It can either rent and pay a royalty for the IP from abroad or outside the company or it can purchase it and claim a capital allowance.