Mr. Seamus Coffey:

I would not say the frustration in respect of stamp duty is solely with the Department of Finance because it is not necessarily the primary source of that information. One would look at the level of transactions, the amount of tax and the composition of stamp duty being collected. I am not necessarily sure that the primary source for this information would be the Department of Finance.

In the main, our relationship with the Department is very good. There is ongoing interaction between the secretariat and the staff of the Department in terms of looking at the available economic data and the approaches taken to addressing some of the problems that have occurred. We have had co-operation on a number of occasions when we were dealing with issues such a growth rate of 26% and how it feeds into the budgetary documents. There is ongoing interaction on estimating the supply side of the economy and the idea of when one knows the economy is preforming above its potential. Naturally, there will be some interactions that could be considered slightly antagonistic but that is because of the nature of the relationship. It is our job to question and at times people can view those questions as being perhaps overly burdensome. If that happens, it is simply a function of the role we have but in the main the relationship is good.