Mr. Brian Cowen:

No ... I mean, there wasn't a requirement to do this. It's a recommendation specific to the property-related schemes that this provision came up and was inserted in the Finance Bill by me in my time. In relation to the SSIAs, which was a scheme, as you say, that was dealt yesterday by the then Minister ... I mean, it was a very ... the purpose of the scheme wasn't just about making an understandable small savers scheme available to ordinary people. It was also about trying to - given the rate of growth and spend there was in the economy at that time - trying to find a way in which you would defer consumption by directing it into a saving scheme. In other words, avoid further inflationary pressures in terms of spend and apart from it being a good thing that people would get back into the habit of saving, the Minister at the time felt there was a need to reintroduce, if you like, the savings culture amongst ... in ... amongst people generally. And it was very successful in the take-up and the people who got into that habit again. But its benefit from a macroeconomic point of view is not just about the fact that the Government were putting up money to back, to back with the ... with those who helped them ... to get people to save, but it also has a means of making sure that that expenditure is now going into a savings scheme, is not going into consumption, which is not inflationary and which is deferring spending patterns, if you like, further out into the future in a way that is better macroeconomically than having a lot of spend in a short space of time.