Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

I do not know where those figures have come from. As far as I know, it is not possible to know what the trade in services is because of the complexity of measuring the trade in services with the territories. The real issue and the real cost arises because every business that could potentially be covered by the Bill would have to look at its operations. The customers in the occupied territories these businesses are trading with will not be readily identifiable. It will not be systemised or coded on their systems. Based on what I hear from our members, I suspect those functions would be removed from Ireland. Those customers would be served from a different jurisdiction. If businesses have to look at their customer profiles to remove the teams servicing them, it will affect much more than just the occupied territories. As I mentioned, there is complexity as regards where service value creation happens in our world of blended work where people work from home or from offices. Based on what I hear from my members, I suspect the value extracted over the Irish operations would be much greater than the trade with the occupied territories alone. This could extend to the entire Middle Eastern function. That would then happen in another jurisdiction. Those customers will still be served. They will not be served out of Ireland. They will be served elsewhere.