Mr. Charlie Phelan:

We will do that immediately, today and tomorrow. We may not meet the Friday deadline for getting the letters out but we do our best.

On Deputy Brassil's question on the issuing of tax clearance certificates, that is the easy part of it. We have automated the tax clearance certificate process and it is a simple operation. One makes one's tax returns, pays one's tax and applies for a tax clearance certificate online and it is instantly given - that is the procedure. As to how this issue will affect the issuing of a farmer's tax clearance certificate, if there is an assessment of a farmer's tax and he appeals it, that has no affect on the system, he will still get his tax clearance certificate. That is no problem there, it will not affect the issuing of the farmer's tax clearance certificate. That is the easiest aspect of it.

Regarding the value of the 1% of shares traded and the discount that might be applied to shares, a very small percentage of the shares are traded, and Kerry Group plc's trade in shares does not represent a huge volume either but, nevertheless, there is a market. We have taken the value from the stamped documents that came to us and we have used those average values in the letter. Whether that is critically correct in each individual case, we are clearly not certain because it may depend, as Mr. Paul Walsh said, on the time of the year.

As regards a discount factor if all the shares came on the market today, interestingly, that was one of the arguments put forward in one of the old cases. The argument was made that the individual could not trade his shares at that moment in time because if he did so, all the shares would be traded together and it would restrict the value, but in that case it was decided that the value was the value that was available rather than a discounted value due to some unforeseen circumstances. I am interested in the Deputy's point about a ruling to the contrary. I certainly could not countenance that an outside agency, or even a State agency, giving a ruling on a tax issue would not be a matter that the Revenue would normally view, but many of the things that people would say about Revenue would be authorised by Revenue, so I would not make a comment on that.