Mr. Des Carville:

The banks pay VAT as well. Second, the banks have a bank levy, which is €150 million per annum. That was put in place in 2014. In last year's Finance Act it was extended to 2021, which amounts to €750 million. Therefore, the banks do pay tax and that has been approved by the Oireachtas. There are a few really important things to note about the tax losses. First of all, tax losses are normal. I think all OECD countries have the concept of tax losses, so there is nothing unusual about the banks having tax losses per seif one imagines other Irish corporates that are tax-resident in this country. Second, we do get value for the deferred tax assets, DTAs, or tax losses. When we value the shareholdings in the banks, the market gives us value for those today. Hypothetically, if we were to eliminate tax losses today, the share prices would fall correspondingly tomorrow.