Mr. Donal McNally:

Well, the very fact that we have gone through the experience means that there will be more caution in future and people will understand the need to run surpluses. I mean, as I understand it, the Finns run a large surplus because of the history they had, as do some of the other Scandinavian countries. As to how governance should work, I did suggest that there is ... possibly it needs to be explained or some sort of social compact or social consensus that you don't have to spend all the money just because you have the money and that there's a need to ... whatever you have, rainy day funds or some way of segregating some of the surplus to be used later. The other way is to have some sort of rule which limits expenditure. I know there's one in the EU which was changed a bit at our request. So it's either learn the lesson, agree something at a social level or have a rule that limits the growth to spending when the resources are there - a sort of counter-cyclical spending rule.