Mr. Brian Hayes:

We have had these discussions before on the capital side. I am not going back over them again. The fact is, we have come through ten years of dulled profitability. In two of those years, there was no profit at all. The fact is that there are significant new costs relating to AML and know your customer, KYC, requirements coming constantly from Europe that also feed into this. All our key banks are bigger and more profitable because they have had to purchase assets from the two exiting banks. Consequently, that is feeding into profitability as well. Profitability is cyclical and needs to be looked at over a number of years to determine where the banks stand.

The other point is the banks will pay, as I understand it, on both the levy and on corporate profits tax, in excess of €400 million, based on 2002 figures. The State itself will see additional taxes as a consequence of the improved profitability of the sector. Those funds are crucial for, as Dr. Hunt said, other points in the cycle that will be more challenging in terms of loss absorption. That has to be taken in the round, notwithstanding the improved profitability for this year.