Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, I think ... that's a fair point. I think that the issue there was that we were the first ... the EU were not expert or au faitwith doing this process. It was the first time to be in this sort of a ... IMF were more ... regular people who did this sort of thing. But the issue was ... so, we were the first ... we were the first in line, if you like, for a programme.

What was clear is that if you put in a programme that is sufficiently ambitious and rigorous and stands up to scrutiny, and if you start implementing that programme, you build goodwill with the programmers and you start saying to them ... you start getting the sort of flexibilities you are looking for. Plus in relation to the interest rate we were back in negotiation, not negotiation but back with them again in December after we had completed the negotiation and we had formally adapted the programme in the House. And in fairness to the present Government, over a couple of years when an opportunity arose in the IBRC situation to lengthen the years of the repayment period, the schedule, then obviously that was a commendable achievement as well.

So what I am saying is you have got to build your credibility with these institutions. The fact that we could do it quickly, the fact that we had a credible programme - it wasn't easy and I am not suggesting that for a moment, it was going to be very difficult domestically to do it. But once you got into a position where you are able to deliver and of course the quarterly and monthly reviews that were going on, showing that this State had the capacity to deliver logistically on the sort of details that they wanted about the programme and how it was doing and all the rest of it, that all added to the goodwill for us to continue with getting improvements. As I've said I am not involved in public life now but I would acknowledge and commend the work that this Government has done to improve some of the terms.