Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

On the finance account, we have been drawing attention to the fact that an overall assessment of liabilities has not been prepared. The last time the liabilities were assessed was in 2009 when we carried out a special exercise. The figure that emerged at that stage was approximately €116 billion in aggregate.

That is doing it from a central perspective. If everybody was calculating his or her pension liability, we could add it up across all entities, but some accounts, for example in the health sector, do not calculate pension liabilities at all. There is that variability. Central Government Departments do not calculate them either because they are not in accrual accounts. There is a further complication which has been raised at previous meetings in that there is considerable variability in the assumptions we have used between entities from year to year. I have some people examining the spread of assumptions used and who is and is not calculating liabilities. I envisage coming back with a report on that area.

Separately, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has agreed that it will carry out an updating of pension liabilities. The aim is that it will be in respect of the position at the end of 2013. That should be represented in the 2013 finance accounts when we will have an update on the aggregate figure.