Mr. Pat Lardner:

I do not believe we lobbied specifically for that exemption. I am happy to come back and clarify. The focus of our interaction with officials around that was to ensure that nothing would be done to jeopardise what is a much broader industry that is not focused on investing in Ireland and which employs 14,000 to 15,000 people in many counties, towns and constituencies around the country. That was one of our concerns.

The Deputy made a point about our growth rates earlier. Ireland has spent 25 very productive, appropriate and responsible years building up an industry which is rightly the envy of many places. It is not easy, it is just that we are very good at it. We would always be concerned, in terms of our members and the contribution back into the economy and society here, that having built the industry so well for 25 years we do not inadvertently - or otherwise - cause damage to it . The industry is something which is not only a national jewel for us in financial services. Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities, UCITS, is a creation of the European Union, but UCITS funds are sold right around the world. There are relatively few areas across the European Union where there is a global brand such as UCITS. At the very time when the European Union is trying to attract capital into its borders for various things, why would it do anything which could complicate, confuse or frustrate the ability to build on this very big European success?