Mr. John McKeon:

I do not have the page number here but the accounts show the balance of the debt is €331 million. It is detailed in note 5 of the Social Insurance Fund accounts. It is a risk but all debt carries a risk in terms of collection and we have to recognise that what the Social Insurance Fund is doing in that situation is effectively acting as a bond. It is like a travel bond when one travels. It is a payment of benefits to people, such as a redundancy payment, accrued pension contributions, holiday time or back wages where the employer is not in a position to pay the employees, because the employer is going bust. Consequently, we pay it; the Social Insurance Fund steps in and makes that figure up. It is like a bonding scheme. We then raise the debt against the employer but the truth is that when debt is raised against an employer that is insolvent or going bust, the chances of ever recovering it are very low. In practice, we will only ever recover about 10%.