Mr. Maurice O'Connell:

Just to add to that, we did this purely to harmonise pilots' flight time limitations within Europe. In other words, if a pilot wanted to go to work for Iberia, the same flight time limitations would be recorded from January to December. We initiated this with EASA. It did not force this on us. In fact, the rule, as Captain Courtney has said, refers to "any calendar year". There was no breach or misunderstanding of the rule by any Irish operator. Traditionally, the bigger airlines in Ireland had been using the March to April regime purely to align with their financial year. That is where it stems from. It does not stem from an advantage to operate, as Deputy Smith has suggested.