Mr. John McKeon:

It is, but it is separate from the debt on the DRAS, which is in respect of individual claimants and so on and amounts to approximately €475 million. I worked in the private sector for a long time. Were I back there now, I would be writing the employer debt off. There would be no question about that, but the Government accounting rules mean that we do not write it off until the liquidation is completed. That is not to say that we are not working hard to recover the €72 million of employer debt that we know is in respect of companies that still have some activity. We took in approximately €7 million of that last year. So far this year, we have recovered approximately €9 million.

We set up a new process with Revenue, at the suggestion of the chair of the committee last year, in which we exchange details on the 100 highest debts in both organisations of employers-----