Mr. John Whelan:

The position is that because of the shortage of cash we are seeing a very significant uptake in invoice discounting, which gives one cash back. It works for Ireland and England. If one tries to get invoice discounting with the banks from outside Ireland and England, they seek evidence of having export credit insurance in place. This is where export credit insurance comes up again as an issue. We have seen an increase in the number of companies that take out export credit insurance mainly because they have been forced to take it out by their buyers. The export credit insurance is supporting the other bank funding instruments. That is the reason it has raised its head once again and is necessary. We have pointed out year in and year out that most of the governments in OECD countries support their exporters by having an export credit guarantee scheme in place. The Americans do it extensively as well.