Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 4 July 2019

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 21 - Accounts of the National Treasury Management Agency
National Treasury Management Agency Financial Statements 2018

9:00 am

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No. I will explain the reason to the Chair. If we look at the volatilities regarding periodic payment orders and whether people will accept interim payments or default to lump sums, our actuaries are always trying to factor in what might happen in that regard. They might get that absolutely right when they say that four or five cases will revert to lump sums. The outcome could be worse than that, however, and there could be eight or nine cases. There are volatilities inherent in the model and they are very hard to engineer out.