Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Corrigan, Mr. Whelan and Mr. Murphy and thank Mr. Corrigan for his opening statement, which was very balanced. He highlighted many of the positives as well as some of the key risks facing the country at present. In the short time afforded to me, I will endeavour to stick to questioning and would appreciate if we could keep our discussion as interactive as possible.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Corrigan fell short of expressing confidence or saying that Ireland is on course to exit the troika programme. Does Mr. Corrigan believe we are on course, all things being equal, under current circumstances, to exit the programme towards the end of this year without having to rely on any backstop of official funding or any precautionary line of funding from the ESM? What is his judgment of how likely we are to have a successful exit?