Mr. Gerry Howard:

The loss regime in Ireland is similar to that which exists in many countries. If a company makes a loss in a year, it is entitled to set it sideways against its own profits - it might have deposit interest relating to trading loss - and claim group relief so that if there were other companies in the group that were profitable, it could set it off against those companies' profits in the particular year, or carry it forward and set it off against future profits. What we are seeing there in general are losses that are available for carrying forward. As my colleague said, we estimate that about €160 billion will be utilised over some period of time.