Mr. Mark Griffin:

No. Looking back at the figures, I think part of this is probably down to the economic downturn and people not buying TV licences. The variability is one reason. The other reason we would expect to have seen an increase is the efforts An Post has taken to tackle evasion. There was a major advertising campaign and an increase in recruitment of temporary inspectors. Another factor we would have programmed in during 2015 when we were doing the Estimate was the expectation that legislation would have been introduced in 2016 to allow the Minister hire procurement agents. We saw what happened in the UK when it outsourced its collection of TV licences: the evasion rate went from approximately 13% to 7%. A number of things were factored in that we expected would have had an effect. One can add to that the economic growth that was expected during 2016. When there is economic growth, people start to invest more in household goods, including televisions.