Mr. Brian Cowen:

The budgets ... there's no doubt that when the crisis hit, Deputy, that that had a huge effect on us and we had to readjust. And I am acknowledging freely, without being party political about it, just acknowledging a fact, that if we were spending less, if there was a less spend in our budgets before, in my budgets before that, clearly the level of adjustment would be less, but it would still have been significant. But it would have come at a price of higher unemployment during that period and less growth. That's just what I'm saying.