Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

I thank the Deputy. I will ask Dr. Cassidy to respond in case he knows some of the specific answers. I am not on top of the number of so-called zombie firms in Ireland.

There is a related, but slightly separate, relevant point that is worth making. Many firms and households have benefited from Government supports over the past 20 months or so. We have been asking what the impact would be if those supports were withdrawn because, in theory, a withdrawal would give the first sign as to whether so-called zombie firms have been surviving only on Government supports. Their failure will be the first indication we will have.

The Deputy is correct that if we increased interest rates, it would have a direct effect on the cost of funding businesses. Those that are not profitable would be impacted. To repeat what I said earlier, we are not in the business of raising interest rates right now. The need to withdraw Government supports is a more realistic proposition. I can comment on the financial stability implications. We will be talking about this more tomorrow when we publish our latest financial stability review. Essentially, the Irish financial system went into one of the biggest economic shocks that it has had for a very long time when it was in a fairly robust position and fairly robust health. The evidence over the past 20 months has been that the Irish financial system has benefited from the repair work it has had to undergo over the past decade and survived the most extreme effects of the shock. The economy is now coming out of the depths it was in. The big financial institutions are in a robust enough position to manage the withdrawal of supports that is ahead. The position on interest rates is a bit more complicated because we are speculating as to what may happen a bit further down the line.