Professor Alan Barrett:

To give a quick response to that, we mentioned the 56,000 increase in employment. It is normally thought of terms of it being wonderful that all these jobs have been created. This is absolutely true but the flip side is that these 56,000 people are willing to take jobs in the context of the high tax rates which people keep speaking about as a great disincentive to work. In terms of the labour supply figures, while we have had huge net emigration it is now moving in the other direction. I will answer the final part of the question not as an economist but as somebody who heads an organisation trying to employ people in Dublin. Every time we cannot employ somebody internationally it is not because of the tax it is because of the housing crisis in Dublin. This is where the difficulty lies. People have not yet said to us they will not come to Dublin because the tax is too high but they regularly tell us they cannot afford rents in Dublin.