Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, in fairness, you know, let's be clear about it. They weren't into the micro detail and we had ... you obviously had to produce initiatives that showed that you were going to make these adjustments. But, at the end of the day ... as you go through year to year, at the end of the day they're just looking at the bottom line. You know what I mean? They're ... they're not going to ... they can't be that prescriptive. But, obviously, you have to put forward credible revenue-raising proposals and, at the end of the day then, how you implement them is a matter for Government - how you do that.

And how you ... if you have, for example, a higher growth rate in your next year, your assumption was you would have 2.75% growth and you ended up with 3.5%, well then you can, obviously, during the course of your discussions during the following year, as I'm sure Minister Howlin has done and Minister Noonan does, you say to them "Look, we can reach this target but the Government feels we can adjust how that programme will operate this year accordingly, this way or that way or the other way."