Mr. John McCarthy:

I think, to be fair to the bank, they did raise the issue of the pro-cyclicality of fiscal policy on many occasions in the various quarterly bulletins. I know there is another process whereby the Governor of the Central Bank sends a letter to the Minister in advance of the budget, it's essentially a pre-budget submission, and typically warns about the need for fiscal policy to be countercyclical and not add to the overheating of the economy. Maybe those ... maybe the bank's comments could have been a little bit harder hitting. In fact, it would have helped us in the Department if they were harder hitting but I would have to go back and check and see exactly what they said. But I'm certainly conscious that in many of the bulletins they would have raised the inappropriateness of fiscal policy at the time.