Ms Breda O'Keeffe:

On restructuring, Deputy Eamon Ryan rightly points out that there is a charge of €29.6 million in the 2017 accounts. As part of the overall restructuring process, we provided that we were projecting that we would reduce overall staffing levels by between 200 and 300. The money was included in the €29.6 million. Our severance and early retirement schemes are entirely voluntary; therefore, when we launch them, we do not know at that point in time who will accept them, whether we can allow them to go or not, with the pressures on resources in the organisation. Therefore, the provision we made was based on a projected number of between 200 and 300 staff leaving. That is our overall provision and what we estimate the total cost of restructuring to be. Approximately 150 people have voluntarily left the organisation under the early retirement and voluntary restructuring scheme.

The Deputy also asked about the minimum capital investment. We have said before that for a number of years we have been under-investing in capital. Our depreciation level is around €14 million each year; therefore, on balance, it is expected that capital investment would be in that order of magnitude for normal replacement. Unfortunately, however, due to our financial circumstances, we have been curtailing capital investment for a number of years to about half of that level, which is not ideal.

The land sale will enable us to rectify some of this. As the director general said, we are still in catch-up mode in that sense. We anticipate investing somewhere between €30 million and €40 million of the proceeds in capital.