Mr. John Moran:

There are a couple of comments to make. The chart in our document suggests where we think the debt will peak. We are now at an interesting juncture where the cost of funds from the programme is approximately 3.36% on average. We are getting to a point where borrowing rates for the State at large have come within that bracket. Any additional savings that we can make will represent a positive for budgetary projections. We have made an assumption on the cost of funds that comes from information from the NTMA. As it goes to the market, we will see that feed in a positive way back into our fiscal numbers.

We have indicated that we expect the debt to peak at the end of this year and to start to decline thereafter. Unfortunately, that decline will be on a slow basis. In 2007, debt in the Irish position was only 25%-----