Mr. Steve Carson:

Obviously, we have not completed the accounts for this year because we are still mid-year. The nature of production is such that pieces can be moved for scheduling reasons or because they do not deliver, so the overall expenditure cannot be calculated within the year. We are expecting an increase on the expenditure of last year, which in the IP statutory account was about €47 million. We are considering increasing that. We are currently tracking at about €48.1 million but the tracking figure will not be the final one at the end of the year.

The new direction strategy, published last year, was ahead of the funding settlements. We talked then about the ambition of spending more than €70 million by 2026. Since the strategy was published, we had the funding settlement. We welcome it. It enables us to plan transformation and plan more with the sector, but there is a shortfall in the exact amount offered. We are currently working through the budgets for next year but we are not going to hit €70 million next year. Our overall plan, subject to the transformation process, is increasing independent production expenditure significantly year on year over the next several years to get to the 25% target.