Dr. Brian Doherty:

As I said, this is something on which we have been engaging with the Department. We will have a further meeting with it later today. This is an issue that must be resolved.

As Dr. Thornhill raised the issue of one of the statutory reports we have to complete - the review of the operation of the Act - under section 6, it will actually include a review of the levy provisions. The authority brought forward the review of the entire Act in order to aid its commencement in the manner in which we wished to do it. We are engaged in a public consultation process on all aspects of the operation of the Act, but specifically mentioned in section 6 is the operation of the levy provisions. We have engaged an economist to look at the levy to ensure it provides a funding stream. We also are engaging on the issue of recoupability, on which I will be meeting the Department. The executive must submit the report under section 6 to authority members by 6 September, with a view to publishing and submitting it to the Minister on 30 September.