Mr. David Gunning:

Anything above 4% is taken by the State. The average tender price inflation in 2019 was 6.67% and that resulted in a payment to the contractor for inflation of €1.77 million. In 2020, while inflation was 2.48%, the formula is a compound formula, so the net rate levied in that period was 1.15%, which yielded a payment to the contractor of just under €1.5 million. In 2021, inflation shot up to 10.24%, which, again on a compounded basis, equated to 7.39%, yielding a payment of just under €18 million. All those figures include VAT.

We have run an analysis of this year's payment and we assume the rate will be approximately 10%, which on a compounded basis becomes nearly 13.4%, meaning a payment to the contractor, including VAT, of about €30 million for 2022. The total payments to the contractor for inflation amount to about €50 million so far, including VAT. As I said, these were outside the €1.433 billion figure.