Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well we, you know, no we didn't see where we were at as a long-term solution but we were prepared to engage to try and find solutions but we'd need funding mechanisms to find those solutions and to do it in a way that didn't leave us in an unsustainable position in terms of our debt, the growth of our debt. We had real commitments to fund our deficits in terms of providing social and public services. We had this other problem in our banking system which was not making it easy for us. And when we acted transparently in terms of going through every loan in every bank that was problematic and putting a value on it and providing the bonds to these banks to go and present to the European Central Bank, that was improving the liquidity position vis-à-visthe European Central Bank and Irish banks. But of course we had this one-off impact on our deficit because it had to be part of your GDP and that brought it up to, what was it, 30%?

I hear, you know I hear Government representatives in recent times talking about the fact that they brought the deficit down from 30% down to what it is. I mean, they don't mention the one-off statistical impact that that decision we made had. They have done well on reducing the deficit, I am not here to be churlish about that. But I don't think they should exaggerate either that they've reduced the deficit by 27% all on their own, clearly they haven't. And ... so, I mean, that's ... you know, let's all be honest with each other here. There were one-off hits on that deficit figure that weren't there next year which is one of the reasons why you're getting down to the figures you're getting down to. Otherwise you'd never get down. So I just think, you know, when we're having public debate, there's sufficient achievements for everyone to ... in terms of correction of the public finances without exaggerating.