Mr. Brian Cowen:

Well, I mean, the programme ... no, I didn't consider a constitution for it in respect of what is a parliamentary matter. It's a question of going to ... we have a Constitution and the Constitution speaks about our parliamentary responsibilities, our governmental responsibilities. You require a referendum in respect of a change to our Constitution - there was no constitutional amendment required in respect of this. This was a legislative matter, a matter tied up with our membership of the European Union. So that didn't arise. And, secondly, the fact is that, you know, when people talk about the difficulties that it caused, and I know it caused difficulties. But I often think what difficulties would it have caused if we didn't meet our responsibilities, if we left, from 2008 saying, "We won't do anything about this, we'll just give out about it and say nothing about it and let the deficit stay at 20%." I mean, who was going to fund this 20%? Who was going to produce this €1 in every €5 that was being spent by Government outside of what we were able to create ourselves? You know, you've got to face up to it that we've got to bring it back into balance and, as I say, we lost ... we had 2006 ... we'd 2004 or '05 levels of taxation we had to get back to 2006, 2007 levels of expenditure and that's not easy. But the alternative is to continue with levels of expenditure in 2013 and 2014 knowing that you're going to hit a wall and you're end up with 1977 levels of expenditure and 1980 levels of tax revenue. You can't ... you can't fly in the face of what's in front of you and what's in front of you is, get back growth as quickly as possible, get your public finances back in order as quickly as possible, consistent with doing the best you can for those who are least able to take it. But get back, in the interest of those very people, because you won't be able to provide public services for them in the future if you don't do it.