Professor Patrick Honohan:

With respect, the record will show that I stated early in that session that targets would form part of our toolkit. I went on to stress to the committee that we did not want to rely exclusively on a high-profile target as our only tool, as such a tool could then become the only target that the banks tried to hit by fair means or foul. We wanted to avoid that. By and large, we are doing so. It is a problem with isolating any single target. Although we have targets as part of our toolkit and they have a high profile, they are not the only measures we are taking.