Mr. Tim Duggan:

There has not been what you would call a formal assessment with a document that states, "formal assessment of - done", but what has been done are very extensive discussions with business representative groups, from IBEC, down to ISME, the Small Firms Association, SFA, the convenience stores network association, all the hospitality ones and so on. We have had extensive engagement with all of those groupings over the past couple of years explaining this system, outlining its implications for them and hearing those very concerns that this will be an additional cost. I have acknowledged that it will be an additional cost but equally, over time, that cost impact of it will dissipate considerably. I assure the Senator that wage inflation over the next ten years will be massively in excess of 6%. I have never seen a ten-year period where it has not been. This is just an element of that wage inflation that will occur over that long period. In that way, it effectively gets consumed within that remuneration inflation. While there will be a little bit of a hit at the beginning, it will dissipate over time as the scheme is rolled out.