Mr. Niall Cody:

Absolutely, it would be fully entitled to do so. Many start-up companies which are raising funds from Enterprise Ireland or seeking an equity injection spend the money in the first few years on research and development and probably have very few sales. They are entitled to the credit. That is why the repayable amount is different. When the research and development started, the money spent was set off against the corporation tax liability, but a lot of these small start-up companies do not have a corporation tax liability and the repayable credit is a cheque, cash in hand, which can then be used to support research and development.