Ms Gina Fitzgerald:

On the question on authorisations, sometimes the headline figure can be a little deceptive in terms of the level of activity coming here. There have been in excess of 100 authorisations in regard to Brexit thus far and a significant pipeline of applications is under consideration. They range from the big banks and insurance companies whose names are in the public domain to smaller investment firms and payment firms. There is quite an array from small one or two person shops and bigger operations. From an authorisation perspective, the Central Bank has varying degrees of activity and engagement with those firms, depending on the level of risk they would bring into the system. Some of those applications will be turned around in a matter of days and for others there would be much more substantive processes in respect of understanding the business models and the type of presence that we would need to be comfortable with them.

With regard to the changing financial landscape, it is probably well documented at this stage that on the banking side we are moving from a more traditional retail banking focus to wholesale banking activity, such as the investment banks. There are a few new firm types coming in the investment management sphere and asset management, which is a different type of market in that it is more about infrastructure. On insurance, there has been some increase in terms of speciality type insurance around marine and aviation, which are risks that we would not necessarily have seen previously in the sectors.

On building alliances, I will speak specifically to the financial sector because that is the area on which we are focused at European level. Building alliances is very much dependent on an issue-by-issue and sector-by-sector basis. In some sectors, we are an exporter of financial services from Ireland into the EU and, therefore, we have natural alliances with other EU member states in that regard. On banking, at a political level, we have signed up to various letters in terms of the Hanseatic League. We would be of that persuasion at a political level on banking and also very much a host member state on issues in banking in how we look at prudential waivers and so on.

In terms of the UK and continued engagement with it, as stated by the Chairman, we are very much determined to keep those strong relationships. We have strong relationships at working group level in the Central Bank and in Europe and very much at senior level. We have ongoing engagement with the UK authorities throughout this process, which has been constructive. We intend to continue that engagement.