Mr. Derek Moran:

One can look at the expenditure numbers for any given year and say they are going in the wrong direction. The numbers have to be taken over a four-year or five-year period. There has been an average current expenditure increase of between 3% and 3.5%. It has probably been slightly less in real terms. That is below our trend growth rate, which is between 3% and 3.5% with inflation sitting on top of that. We need to look at this in the round over a period of time. It is absolutely the case that the last thing we want to do is see a situation in which this starts to spin out of control. We have to be prudent about the taxes that are there. They are not there simply to be spent, because they are vulnerable. We need taxes we can rely on. There was a time when domestic companies were in the top ten corporate taxpayers, but that is no longer the case. They are all multinationals. The top ten varies over time as new companies come in and as people use up capital allowances or losses that they might have had in the past. The concentration of more than 40% of the corporation tax take across ten companies is not unusual from an international perspective. While it is not unusual to have a high concentration across big companies, it is something we have to watch.