Ms Deirdre Donaghy:

There is definitely an openness to looking at anything we can do to make things easier or more straightforward. It is not designed specifically with FDI or pharma in mind. Clearly, those are large claimants and they would probably have the most experience with it. In terms of how it was designed originally, things like what is qualifying R&D refer back to wider international definitions, and there is a Frascati definition of what is research and development. Things like that have an origin and there is a reason why they are there.

Revenue can probably give more information on this. We get feedback from the consultations with small businesses that those who engage with this have a reasonable amount of positive things to say about it. There is definitely a fear of it that seems to put people off engaging, and while we will do what we can to try to address that, it is clearly there. There is no policy objection to trying to simplify it but there are some basic underlying criteria that we have to satisfy. We have to be able to show that it is R&D and that it is pursuing scientific or technological uncertainty. We have to have a reasonably fair way of saying how we determine how much of the cost is to do with that. It is rare enough that there will be a company that is doing nothing but R&D because every person involved might be doing part R&D and part something else. There has to be some kind of fair system of doing it. Working within all of that, if we can find a way that is robust, there is no policy objection to trying to simplify and it is just a matter of trying to find a way that works.