Mr. Derek Moran:

On the taxation issues, it has yet to be seen what emerges in the United States. We spent some time there in the immediate aftermath of the election. Certainly, the sense in Washington was that this could be anything from radical reform through to nothing happening. That is the range referred to by people who work there.

If something is going to happen with taxation in the United States, it will happen in the first six to 12 months. Generally speaking, US Presidents make advances on taxation policy in the first year of their first term. It is very rare in the second. All our strategy on taxation is predicated on being competitive and being part and parcel of the development of global taxation. We published a strategy, which is updated annually, on where that is going. That will continue to be the case. We have always been very adaptable in our approaches to this. Ultimately, the calls on where we are going to go are policy calls. This will not be part of the Department's strategy. The strategy is across the entire gamut of what the Department is doing. We take Brexit seriously because, when nobody thought Brexit might happen - it was assumed it would not - the Department was out doing the work and asking what it would be like if it did. None of the statistics that Mr. McCarthy has given members is new. They are all published well in advance. The core study was at least 18 months ago. We asked what would occur if Brexit happened. Right up to the day of the vote, nobody believed it would happen. We outlined the challenge Ireland would face it if happened. We have refined that and so on so a focus can be put on what the policy responses might be.

I take the Chairman's point that people want answers now. The UK Prime Minister's response with the ten points was only last week. Personally, I never foresaw a soft Brexit. The vote was less about economics and more about domestic political considerations within the United Kingdom. This is not good news economically for Britain, Ireland and the rest of Europe. We have to address that.