Mr. John McCarthy:

I do. From a euro area perspective, price stability is defined as "inflation close to but not exceeding 2%". I suppose that would be the ideal. However, from an Irish perspective, we still have a situation in which price levels, rather than the rates of change, are still in excess of the European average, which is affecting competitiveness. We therefore need to run an inflation rate below that of our European colleagues for some time to come. Something of the order of 1% to 1.5% would not be an unreasonable rate of inflation in Ireland for the next couple of years.