Mr. Keith Walsh:

Absolutely. The Deputy's first question was about the process involved. When we were trying to figure out costings for budget 2018, we looked back over a three-year period. Therefore, we looked at 2016 as the most recent complete year and tried to factor out once-off transactions. In 2016 there were some significant transactions that when we reviewed them we deemed to be once-off. I cannot say much about them for reasons of confidentiality because there were not that many. However, this is a manual process where we examine the largest transactions to identify whether they are likely to recur or whether they are once-off or outliers of some kind. The value of non-residential property transactions in 2016 was more than €12 billion, but when we factored out what we thought were once-off transactions, the figure reduced to approximately €9 million. There were no major once-off transactions in 2014 and 2015. The value of non-residential property transactions in both of those years was €8 billion or €9 billion. One never knows what will happen in the future, but that is why I have some confidence that if we look at the three-year period 2014 to 2016, there is a steady rate of transactions when once-off transactions are excluded valued at €8 billion or €9 billion. That is on what the ready reckoner costing for the increase from 2% to 6% was based.

On Deputy Dara Calleary's comment, I was not trying to ignore the IFAC. I am open to correction, but it is my understanding the council did not have detailed information and that it may have quoted industry sources in its report. Without singling out any of them, the industry is slightly underestimating the value of transactions in recent years because when I compare the estimates the industry is putting out with what we are taking in in tax payments and hard cash, our figures are consistently higher over a three-year period. For the first three quarters of 2017 the value of transactions was approximately €6.5 billion. If that trend continues in the fourth quarter, the yield will reach €8 billion or €9 billion. We have three and a half or three and three quarter years of transactions in the market with a value of €8 billion or €9 billion, which suggests a certain level of consistency on which we can rely at least in the short term.