Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

That confusion is unhelpful. To be clear, our job is to endorse the micro-economic forecasts and in the budget it is just for the year ahead. It is not for outer years, although it goes out the full length of the stability programme update, SPU. We assess whether those forecasts are an appropriate set of forecasts, and that is purely a judgment on the technical side of the projections.

In the full fiscal assessment report we have to assess the fiscal stance, which is a more normative judgment. That is a very different exercise, and we never use the word "endorsement" in that context because it is a very different process.