Mr. Matthew McGann:

A key variable or input to the calculation of long-term ageing costs is immigration. Irish people are living for longer and having fewer babies, which contributes to long-term population projections, but immigration also contributes. To be honest, it is one of the hardest to forecast or model. We do that as part of a process at the European level; there are methodologies and EUROSTAT produces population projections. Together with the Central Statistics Office, CSO, we feed into the EUROSTAT process. Projections for immigration come with some of the largest confidence warnings around them because they are so difficult to accurately model.