Mr. Charlie McCreevy:

Well, who can say what would have happened or what I would have done if I had remained as Minister of Finance. I didn't and there's no point kind of speculating on it. I would have ... I certainly have recognised since I left, and looking at the figures from 2003, 2004 to 2007, that there was massive increases in the property lending area, which I alluded to earlier. I have dealt earlier with the questions of increases in Government expenditure, both capital and current, and given you the figures as a percentage spend on GNP. If you like, I can give you other figures relating to what the spend was in various years. So I think that, all in all, that what was ... in the time that I was Minister of Finance, I am quite happy that I dealt with the issues as presented to me. If it became very obvious some of the things that have occurred since my time there in Finance, I'm not too sure as to what actions I would have taken or whatever but there's no point ... there's no point ... you do what you do when you're there. There's no point in speculating what you would have done when you weren't there. So I regard that as a total futility for me to be speculating about that. I think that the changes that we brought about in the Irish economy, the things that we done, were all very, very worthwhile.