Professor John McHale:

Before getting to that question, I will come back to the question on increased risk. Dr. O'Sullivan is correct on the analysis of the risk of not meeting the target. Another source of risk is that there could be a flare-up of the eurozone crisis. Deputy O'Donnell is correct that interest rates are currently low and have come down more recently, but we cannot rule out the possibility that there could be a flare-up of the crisis again. We know from experience that matters can turn quickly and one cannot merely go with the fact that current rates are low and then think that we are completely out of the woods and will be paying those rates forever.

We must think about the bad scenarios and how to self-protect against them. In the report we look back to the experiences of countries that have gone through crises, particularly the Asian countries, and what they did to protect themselves in terms of accumulating cash balances, negotiating precautionary credit lines and good maturity management of the debt to limit the risks. In that context, we examined the precautionary credit line. We must look beyond the current bond yields.